Reply #13: Something tells me... Bush has never progressed... [View All]

[neoblues]

beyond being a juvenile. Obviously we aren't likely to ever get the chance to put Bush through any comprehensive diagnostic analysis (and I suspect that even in person he would present considerable difficulties in terms of diagnosis and not the least for being clever and such a skilled, remorseless liar). Your point with regard to the fact that the related diagnostic instruments were based off of studies of a unique population which Bush, owing to his privileged existence would never have been able to join, despite himself, is certainly relevant. Otherwise, Bush might well have been the target for a larger number of "distance" diagnostic attempts by less professional psychiatrists.

From a non-professional, informal point of view, though, Bush definitely seems to follow the kind of behavioral patter suggested by a "Defiance Disorder". Not that this should be in any way surprising since on an individual basis, many people suffer significant long term effects on their attitudes and behaviors based on nothing more than one or more experiences from early life (generally this seems to tend to be from around the age range of 'elementary school' or before)(hence the popular wisdom from books like "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten"). Somehow I just imagine Bush was a holy terror as a kid; he certainly grew up to be one--though this may not be entirely fair; after all, in more than a small way, he's merely the representative of the advice (unwitting hood ornament) that he is given by a very twisted set of advisors (who deserve their own psychological deconstruction).

Nevertheless, somewhere in my own psyche, there seems to be an urge to try to convince others that this man is anything but Presidential (and so much worse) and is a monumentally bad choice for President, one for which we will suffer (whether we actually elected him or not). For some reason it bothers me to see all these people out there thinking this catastrophe in chief is one of our best Presidents ever and blindly supporting every misguided thing he does (and everything he does is misguided, malicious or mendacious at the very least). At least my own psychological flaws are neither particularly harmful nor if they were, would I be in a position to cause so much harm--which is why we probably need to instate a new program of psychological evaluation of every candidate for President/Vice-President. Just kidding; can you imagine how that would work and would anyone either dare run for President then or be found sufficiently sane, humane and robust enough (presuming such testing could even discriminate sufficiently). However we do it, we can scarcely afford to allow such people remain or continue to become our leaders in the future. Of course, if our Democratic constructs designed to prevent such abusive leadership hadn't successfully been subverted by the Republicans with their effective triple branch coup over the government, the standard division of powers would have saved us.

Which leads me to the last point/question. Am I wrong, or does this modern version of "conservatism" or "republicanism" not seem to have the appearance of a mass psychological disorder? Perhaps there's something to the theories about "memes" and "thought viruses", but whatever the case, this seems almost like a psychological/mental infection/epidemic that has spread among otherwise or previously, at least somewhat, sane people. But surely, there's no research on the existence of infectious psychological disorders or the communicability of such hopefully imaginary constructs. Take an anti-cognotic (anti-memeetic) and call me in the morning and be sure to wash your mind with soap after coming into contact with a Republican...