chadn737

You mean behavior like that which relies on subjective political opinion to judge the mental state of others rather than actual science of the mind, i.e psychiatric and psychological research.... What matters here is a medical diagnosis, not people's subjective view of those who disagree with them. So yes, we need a doctor, or at least we need to rely on actual psychiatric and psychological research to objectively makes such decisions. Its pointless debating this further with you as it is clear that you have let your political biases trump scientific objectivity.

I don't think I'm missing any context. A writer made a 10 point argument labeling half the nation as "insane" based on an absurd list of examples. That the list is perhaps meant as an inside joke with readers who have already drank the same koolaid as the writer is about the only relevant context....what other context am I missing? You mean how the Democratic party has toed the line in previous administrations? This is nothing new and people forget that both parties have done this. Its also irrelevant to the mental state of conservatives.

This is not scientific evidence, its a continuation of the same sort of subjective and obvious biased argumentation used by John Cuthber and Overtone. In other words...pick out a few key issues held by somebody on the political right, call it insane, and then make a hasty generalization of the entire political right. For instance....one of the "10 signs"...."General Oddness". The only thing in that category is "Ron Paul". They took a single politician our of the millions of conservatives, call him "Odd" and then call then use this to make a hasty generalization of the entire political right. That is so absurd in terms of fallacious reasoning and subjectivity as to be laughed out of these forums. Or take #1 "Denial"....listed there is "denial that humans evolved". Only problem is that ~40% of liberals don't believe this and at least a 1/3rd of conservatives do. Its another hasty generalization. Based on this same issue I can say that the political left is also in denial since a huge chunk of them reject evolution as well. Number #5 "anger"....Newt Gingrich's scowl is only example given. Do you honestly think this is blog post (it is nothing more than a blog post) constitutes serious scientific evidence after reading that? How about the fact that its directly contradicted by studies showing conservatives are consistently more happy than liberals? http://mic.com/articles/98480/psychologists-say-conservatives-are-happier-than-liberals This entire list is subjective and meant more as entertainment than anything else. Posting it here as "scientific evidence" is an insult to reason. Of course I'm not trying to show that its wrong, because its a red herring. Its so irrelevant to the issue of whether or not the political right have a mental illness that its not even worth discussing. You cannot objectively or scientifically classify half of a nation as "mildly insane" based on agreement or disagreement with highly contentious political issues. You are in essence making an absurd litmus test in which political disagreement with John Cuthber = "insanity". Thats all this is, subjective name-calling. Disagree with John Cuthber and he can classify you on insane based on nothing else than politics. Consider the fact that your argument and evidence are a strawman. The OECD data is premised on legal immigration, hence why the biggest benefits are seen in the immigration of educated and skilled workers....but the political right isn't against legal immigration, its against illegal immigration...which makes an argument for legal immigration a strawman argument. And its not simply a matter of economics. Illegal immigration comes at enormous human cost in the form of human trafficking across the borders. http://abcnews.go.com/US/tracing-human-cost-immigration-altar-arizona/story?id=21406135Your argument ignores that important aspect. Now the point here is not whether one should be for or against immigration....its to demonstrate that your argument ignores the subtleties and complexities of a very contentious political issue and based on such simplistic assumptions, labels have a nation as mentally insanse. That line of argumentation and fallacious reasoning is "insane". As you yourself said, we need a psychiatrist. In order to logically, objectively, and scientifically claim the the political right is "insane" you need to provide scientific evidence from psychiatry and psychology...the disciplines that actually study mental illnesses. Anything else is simply a red herring. So I ask you yet again, do you have any scientific evidence from the fields of psychiatry or psychology to support your argument?

Simply posting a bunch of links while failing to provide any context yourself is an internet tactic called "link warz" or "gish gallop". I would kindly ask that you provide the main arguments, since this is your argument. Otherwise, you will just have to wait until I have time to read all of them. This is nothing but one giant ad hominem. I am referring to John Ray's peer-reviewed and published work on the subject. I have linked to his papers in previous posts. What the man's personal opinions are, are irrelevant....what matters is whether or not his published scientific work is valid. Attempting to discredit John Ray personally rather than addressing the actual arguments is a fallacy. Nothing that you have presented represents "psychiatric" research. None of it represents "psychological" research....none of it is qualifies as an actual scientific study. All you have done is focus on highly contentious issues, assume that you are right on those issues, and label anyone who disagrees with you "insane". When politics trumps the need for science....demise of science indeed. In post 185 I was given a list of political issues with the assumption that any opinion differing from the political view points of yourself means a disconnect with reality....rather than simply a logical difference of opinion, which it is. Hell, you actually list "denial of risks of GMOs" as if that had any scientific basis. If you really want to talk about disconnect with reality based on such issues, lets discuss the fact that ~40% of liberals don't believe in evolution. Suddenly the lines of which "side" is out of touch becomes blurred as vast numbers on both side clearly do not believe in evolution. As I keep pointing out, judging half a population's mental state based on your own personal opinion of contentious issues is subjective, unscientific, false, and absurd. Not to mention the fact that its incredibly arrogant to think that you are right on every political issue and that anyone disagreeing with you is "insane". Based on that list, I myself am mildly insane because I actually believe the science on GMOs that they are safe. To pretend that these arguments are scientific rather than merely an expression of your political opinion is an insult to logic and science. Ok, so lets deal with the issues of RWA...maybe by returning to actual research we can finally start to discuss science: 1) The questions used in the questionaire to measure RWA are inherently biased. The nature of the questions focuses exclusively on a very narrow set of issues, namely certain moral/social values such as homosexuality or atheism. It ignores a broad range of other issues such as economics, foreign affairs, social policy that is inherently not about sex/religion, property rights, etc. With an inherent and untested assumption that any "right wing" answer will be "authoritarian" and that any "left wing" answer is inherently "anti-authoritarian". The effect is that the questionaire is designed to ignore any form of conservatism that would not correlate with the preconception of conservatives as authoritarians. As I pointed out in previous posts, modifying the language or changing the issues can easily bias the questionaire to produce "left wing authoritarians" or make the test agnostic to an individuals actual politics. 2) As John Ray in his published work pointed out, the RWA does not correlate at all with independent measures of authoritarianism, but does correlate to a degree with certain types of conservatism. The implication is that the RWA does not measure "authoritarianism" but merely measures religious conservatism. 3) Given such inherent biases in the nature of the questions, of course you will find correlations as the test itself is designed in such a way as to produce the correlations it wants. The experiment is designed to produce the desired outcome....hence why its biased. After we discuss the RWA, we can then discuss other results and conclusions....such as: 1) Significance and most importantly Effect Size of RWA correlations with various measures....such as those used in the Jost meta-study. If the effect size is small...is the finding even meaningful? 2) How does any of this correlate or associated with "mild insanity"?

Except that the issue is not whether or not some conservatives believe things that are "out of touch". ~40 some percent of liberals do not believe in evolution, ~1/3rd of conservatives do, and there are many Creationists who believe that the Earth is billions of years old. If simply having a belief outside of what is fully supported by science is enough to make one insane...then ~40% of liberals are "insane". The issue of this thread, from the start, has been whether or not conservatives are "mildly insane" because...well because psychology says so....somewhere along the line....mainly after I pointed out the inherent flaws in the experiments/measures used to come to some of these conclusions, the debate became about labeling half of a nation "insane" because they disagree with John Cuthber and associates on immigration or topic X. If you want to label that many people as having a mild mental disorder based on political affiliation, then I expect scientific evidence to support it. It is hypocritical and unscientific to make such absurd assertions and refusing to support it with scientific evidence while pretending to be the defender of science. It is illogical to go around making classical fallacies like hasty generalizations: if ~1/3rd of conservatives believe in evolution and ~40% of liberals do not, then calling "conservatives" "out of touch" or "insane" and that liberals are somehow not on this one issue is a hasty generalization when such large sections of each group believe the opposite. It really is saddening to see scientists and those who claim to be dedicated to science suddenly ignore all science and need for evidence and resort to such obvious fallacies when suddenly its comes down to politics. That is no different intellectually than what a creationist does. Rational people should reject such obvious fallacious name-calling.

Anything other than a medical diagnosis is non-scientific and simply name-calling. We call things/people "insane" or "crazy" in common usage not because people are actually insane or crazy, but because we simply find the idea or person ridiculous, outrageous, disagreeable, etc. This sort of usage is subjective, unscientific, non-medical, and simply reflects the user's own biases and opinions....nothing more. They may be perfectly sane....more sane than the person calling them "insane" and we recognize that such verbiage is simply opinion and not a reflection of the accused's actual mental state. I will draw your attention to the fact that before there were psychologists we treated homosexuality, transexuals, and a host of other non "insane" people as if they were literally insane. Even after there were psychiatrists, we treated such people as if they had a mental disease. We treated people of different races as if they were sub-human and lacking in mental capacity. Forgive me then if I take issue with your "de facto" diagnosis that is not backed by scientific evidence. Such diagnoses have a very high rate of false-positives and tend to be colored by a person's biases. Calling those you personally disagree with "insane" without any actual psychiatric evidence to back it up falls under this same sort of biased diagnosis that you call "de facto" that was used to justify locking homosexuals up. The only person that it is "de facto" too is yourself and those who share your personal biases. At this point, your refusal to actually provide psychiatric evidence that conservatism is a form of insanity is nothing but dodging. Your responses are dodging and an attempt to justify "folk psychiatry" as legitimate science. I ask you again....do you have any actual psychiatric/scientific evidence that conservatives are insane? If not, then we can conclude that calling them such is simply your opinion and can be dismissed as such.

Um no. You are not qualified to make the diagnosis, neither are common people. You yourself just said that only psychiatry is: John Cuthbar: "If you want a medical diagnosis of insanity you need a psychiatrist." So if you want to actually claim that conservatives are crazy, then you need to provide ACTUAL psychiatric data on the mental state of conservatives. Anything less than that is non-scientific, speculation, and shear biased opinion. I'll ask you again to please support your claims with hard psychiatric research.

Since the thread was started based on psychology studies....all the debate on contentious issues that in no way assess an individual or group of individuals actual mental state (i.e. your entire argument) is a red herring. If you want to say that only psychiatry is qualified to say whether or not "conservatism" is a form of insanity...then I'll gladly go along with that and ask that you show actual scientific evidence from psychiatric research that supports any such assertion. At least the psychological research discussed earlier has standards regarding measurement and statistical analysis. The current debate that relies on peoples opinions on contentious subjects (again your arguments) is so far from the any psychological or psychiatric measure of insanity as to be laughable. So by all means, lets discuss the psychiatric research on conservatives. Please show me any published research from any reputable psychiatric journal that has conducted such work.

The red herrings and straw men introduced to divert this thread from actual discussion of psychology is telling. I guess if the actual science fails to confirm your opinion of those who disagree with you...then use fallacies....

1) They ignore evidence and you misrepresent their positions and create strawmen.....which is the same as "ignoring evidence". 2) A discussion of immigration is off-topic in a thread about psychological studies of the political right. You are introducing a red herring. If 'ignoring evidence" is a form of insanity, so is the use of fallacies. 3) Saying that somebody "ignores evidence" is not the same as being insane. Some of them do ignore evidence. Many base their position on different types of evidence or possess positions more subtle than the strawman you have made. Many people on the left ignore evidence, like in the case of GMOs...by that logic, much of the left is insane as well. Disagreement over complex issues is NORMAL....calling anyone you disagree with "insane" is dehuminization. Such views of the "other side" is characteristic of people who struggle with ambiquity, differences, changing information, etc.... Is this ACTUALLY what you think the Right believes and says? Because its so far off-base as to be delusional. You are redefining "insanity".....

I'm saying that if you want to label half a nation insane, then you need to back it up with HARD scientific data and not based on the facts that you disagree with their positions. As I pointed out, a lot of your arguments misrepresent theirs and amount to making strawmen of them....upon which you call them "insane"? Pointing to complex social/economic/political issues and claiming that half the nation is in "willful ignorance" that you disagree with is far from actual scientific evidence of such a claim. That is neither logical nor scientific and I expect more of a scientific claim coming from a scientist. This is nothing more than an attempt to "dehumanize" people of who differing views....its classic propaganda of the worst kind.

Great....but that is irrelevant to discussions of pyschology....making it a continuation of a red herring as I have pointed out previously. I don't care if you disagree with the political right. The issue of immigration is complex and not subject to simple generalizations. Rational people can disagree over the same evidence, in particular subtle evidence without being "insane". This is not only fallacious reasoning, but its also, as pointed out many times, classic propganda techniques. The references to "insanity" are classic means of dehumanizing your opposition. Ironically, the assumption that those who disagree with you possess some sort of mental deficiency is the sort of behavior characteristic of those who are uncomfortable with ambiquity, differenes of opinion, rigidity of beliefs, etc...the very traits being used to label people as "insane".

1) Your last two posts both made arguments that were not at all based upon actual psychology, but were rather based on policy and are which are also not based upon any actual psychological measure or definition of "insanity". Its just you calling them insane. 2) Thats quite the stretch to call one self qualified to diagnose somebody as "insane". Regardless, the reasoning here is based on a host of fallacious arguments. Consider the fact that the OECD report on immigration and its economic benefits is primarily premised on the benefits of educated, high earning immigrants and also points out that immigrants who earn less than the average native born citizen do contribute less than native born citizens. However, last time I checked, the political right opposed illegal immigration, not legal immigration, which would entail most high skill and high earning labor, with the later entailing the low-skill and low-wage labor. That's a classic strawman. To attack an argument not representative of your opponents argument is a straw man fallacy. Based on what you have told me about psychosis, wouldn't attacking non-existent demons (i.e. straw man arguments) also be a form of psychosis? If after all, you believe that data a position against a singular form of immigration...illegal immigration....is equivalent to ALL immigration contrary to the evidence and the specific arguments of those you disagree with...then how is that any different than believe that one is a "Queen" contrary to all other evidence? 3) You are taking VERY complex data with lots of caveats. For instance, the data you provide also points out that its results refer to aggregate GDP and not net GDP of the nation. Rational and sane people can look at the same data, its strengths and weaknesses and rationally arrive at different conclusions based on that data. Calling people who rationally disagree with you over the interpretation of the evidence "insane" is...insane! In fact, its the sort of behavior tha smack of the intolerance of difference, ambiquity, and uncertainty that the previously discussed psychological studies portray of "right-wing authoritarianism." You are equivocating between two different meanings. There is "insanity" as an actual mental/medical disorder....the first definition....and then there is insanity as it is often used in common language as a pseudonym for "foolish or unreasonable". Given that this entire thread is based upon psychological studies, the obvious presumption is that one is referring to the former, i.e. insanity as a medical condition and not as a pseudonym for something a person thinks is foolish. The first is a serious accusation and also ammendable to scientific investigation. The second is completely subjective to a person's own prejudices and non-scientific. I hear a lot of people on the political right call those on the Left insanse. That doesn't prove anything. If people want to go around bitching about the other sides politics, then have at it. The moment however you start trying to abuse science by labeling those you disagree with as "insanse" and trying to prove as much using psychology....the nature of the debate has changed. 1) Now you actually have to contend with real data, real science, and not your own prejudices. 2) You've just crossed into the territory of propganda used throughout human history to dehumanize the opposition. Its the same sort of thing that was done in the World Wars to dehumanize the Germans and Japanese, same sort of dehuminization that led to even worse atrocities. I find that profoundly disturbing and something to be fought tooth and nail. I am profoundly distrubed that on a science forum of all places.

Again an argument that amounts to a red herring as it ignores any actual basis in psychology or scientific data (which is pretty much the entire basis of this thread). Do you have anything to say that is based on psychological studies or are further comments merely going to consiste of you calling positions you disagree with "insane"?

Calling them "non-reality based" regardless of the position is to ignore the actual arguments and reasons behind the positions. I am not saying they are wrong, I am saying that labeling positions in such ways tends to close off discussion and actual understanding.