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On political hating and virtue — 22 Comments

1. Much of the “woke” insanity which has destroyed the ability to think rationally of many supposedly “well-educated” members of the so-called “intelligentsia” derives from years of indoctrination in colleges and universities, as well as from the incessant fabrications and gaslighting of the race-baiting MSM, while some of this virtue-signaling is certainly a manifestation of the desire to feel intellectually and morally superior to those (especially HRC’s “deplorables”) deemed backward, uneducated and unrefined, but it is likely that the decline of religious belief has left a void which has been replaced by a cult of unreason with many of the elements of traditional religion, such as notions of sin, a priestly class sermonizing from holy books, dogma which must never be questioned, demonology and martyrology, the sacralizing of certain persons and things, and, perhaps most disturbingly, the endless hunt for dissenters and heretics.

2. As a general rule I try to avoid labeling a group of people as “evil”, not because I don’t believe in the concept of evil, but because I think it’s often not particularly useful and is often destructive and dangerous. The problem with condeming some group of people as “evil” is that is sort of gives you permission to do whatever you want to them and be fully morally justified in doing so. If someone is “literally Hitler” or whatever, then murdering them is justifiable. If an entire group of people is evil, then even extreme things (like pogroms) can be justified.

   There’s no shortage of people on the Left who fully believe that conservatives (and particularly Trump supporters) are “evil”. I’m sure imaginging them as evil makes it easier to do nasty things to them, like supress their viewpoints and deplatform them.

3. Neo. Wrt your last graf. Right on.

   j.e. I have a hard time figuring the folks we’re talking about are the way they are due to piles of misinformation, as if reading a mixed-up encyclopedia. It’s an emotional, personal thing and it causes them to search for–to stretch a metaphor–the mixed up encyclopedia.

   From time to time, as circumstances permit in discussions, I may mention my wife and I do Meals on Wheels. Or that I did civil rights work in MS half a century ago. I don’t expect to get anywhere with it but…somebody may…just…wonder. Among other things why their precious friends don’t do things like that. Or the hilarious story about how the first responder said to me one morning…”Didn’t I see you last night?” Or how the stupid cardiologist’s office didn’t have any spare oxygen when Marge’s tank ran out and I found you can’t get the stuff in a hospital, it’s a controlled substance and I was tearing off to where a person told me I could get a tank and NOBODY wanted to drive eighty miles an hour downtown no matter how much I screamed at them…. Sheesh. Take a deep breath, it’s free. Pull out the nitrogen and the DEA is all over it, or something. Or razzing the old vets at Feeding America is pretty cool, like we’re still nineteen and can still by God take care of business. Quick walk around the block for conditioning, twenty minutes on the rifle range and we’re badder than we ever were. Krauts, Japs, Charlie, hadji….where they at?
   But always based on what might be called good works. On purpose.
   Kind of fun.
   Never know.

4. Evil or stupid on the Left? Take your choice. The stupids enable the evildoers to exercise their evil. There are one hell of a lot of stupids that vote Democratic. One hell of a lot, and in their daily lives they are not stupid, but come elections, well….

   And I do not believe that these stupids hate hate. They do not analyze that far. They in their tens of millions are happy in their hatreds.

   So I agree with @Nonapod that “There’s no shortage of people on the Left who fully believe that conservatives (and particularly Trump supporters) are “evil”. I believe that qualifies as hatred.

5. I was just today discussing with my college kid the phenomenon of people at her campus (in Texas) choosing not to wear a mask. Her perspective is that wearing a mask signals your pro-socialness – your willingness to do something just for another person’s well-being. I called out her use of the word “signal” – would it be just as valid, then, for them to wear a t-shirt that said “I care about other people’s well-being”? Especially as more and more people are fully vaccinated here?

   She countered that they don’t care about other people’s well-being, as evidenced by their decision not to wear a mask. (She didn’t see the circularity of that argument.) Instead, she claimed, they were sending a different signal: that they believe they’re too good for other people, that other people’s lives don’t matter.

   I pointed out that some believe that people who do choose to wear a mask, and I didn’t add but could have, “in situations in which wearing a mask can provide no possible physical benefit to anyone,” are signaling the same thing: they’re morally superior to those who don’t mask.

   And she said, “They are!”

   As I believe Jean Kerr said, “Youth is not called callow for nothing.” My daughter is intelligent and caring. But she has 100% bought the idea that the position presented to her by “influencers” as the moral one is the only possible moral position.

6. “Although I continue to believe that most people who exhibit this behavior are not themselves evil, I do believe that such behavior can and ordinarily does strongly enable evil.” neo

   I agree, wherein I struggle is in the area of accountability.

   Those who are not evil but strongly enable evil perhaps fall upon a spectrum within three broad categories; the ignorant, the willfully blind and those for whom their ideological end justifies whatever means are necessary to achieve it.

   In years past, I was comfortable leaving their accountability up to God. But kneeling to the imposition of tyranny, achieved through the support of those who enable evil is not something to which I am willing to acquiesce.

   Ignorance may be corrected.

   The willfully blind are worthy only of contempt because that action renders them unworthy of the freedoms bequeathed to them by those who gave “their last full measure of devotion”.

   Those for whom the end justifies whatever means are necessary to impose their ideological tyranny are the mortal enemies of liberty and must be fought. Peacefully if and when possible but violently if and when necessary.

   We are fast approaching a time when every American must in their heart of hearts, answer Patrick Henry’s question; “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?”

   At now 72 years of age, I would like to spend my remaining time and energy pursuing my hobbies and interests but I for one, will not do it upon my knees.

   Molon Labe

7. The thing that has been amazing me for quite a few years now is the lack of self-awareness on the part of leftists who rage against all things rightward. They really don’t, or I guess can’t, see the hate and anger on their own side. On the few occasions I’ve tried to point it out I got the “does not compute,” “these go to 11” blank look. In their view any negative emotional fervor on their side is righteous indignation, not only not bad but actually rather noble.

8. Mac. Absolutely. And, to go a step further, the more fervid, the more noble.

9. Our species has such grotesque and incommensurate emotions. We are half good. We are so good to family and friends and loved ones and nice to even close strangers (if they are like us); but we become unbelievable jerks and even fiends against people who are different in any way: skin pigment, ideas, looks, weight, dress, habits, et al, ad infinitum.

   Of course, this is just what you would expect in tribes. It is standard tribal behavior. We need to figure out how to fix this. Maybe somewhere in the galaxy and beyond there are life forms that have been through this and could teach us how to change.

   I wish we could find out some way to communicate faster than the speed of light so that we could efficiently talk to other life in the universe. Physics used to believe that electron orbitals in atoms–as electrons absorb and radiate various frequencies of light–are shifting instantaneously, faster than light. Then last year, I see in Science an article claiming that they actually measured this speed and it is slower than light. Damn. I guess Einstein’s equations suggest that you can’t travel at light speed but that nothing forbids one from going faster. But when you do this you screw up cause and effect and entropy and other fundamental laws, so that all physicists pooh pooh this idea thoroughly. I keep hoping for the phenomenon of entanglement to allow this, but actual information can never be carried by entangled particles. They Say. So you can witness the effect but you can’t send messages this way.

   But this universe is so seductive because we know there has to be other life. We know this because we know life is not outlawed by the laws of physics…so that it is possible. Things that are possible are going to happen if the numbers are large enough. And they are enormous. There are @10^22 stars in the visible universe. We have found several thousand planets already orbiting just nearby stars. The number of sand grains on earth including all its deserts is estimated at @10^18.. This means there are 10,000x more stars than sand grains. Wow. When we are dealing with such numbers, no matter how unlikely something is, you can be assured that it is going to happen, unless it is forbidden by the laws of physics. So if something is possible, it is going to happen in such a large sand box. In fact, you can be sure of it. So, there are people out there somewhere, at approximately the same stage of evolution, and they occasionally look like us and drive cars like us and even speak a few words like us (because of onomatopoeia). And they may have solved lots of interesting dilemmas and it would be great to talk to them.

   There, I’ve said it and made myself a loony bird.

10. @dnaxy:

    I figure that the arrival of global mass communications and the bringing of peoples ‘together’ *is* the Great Filter :).

    We can hardly stand our own kind taken in the mass; throw Others into the mix and all bets are off.

    Rather than trying to create a New Man, how about we all get realistic and honest about our limitations and failure modes as a species and try to live within their constraints? This has a bunch of implications for immigration, racial desegregation, censorship, female emancipation and a bunch of other newfangled *innovations*.

    It’s not for nothing that the Spanish Dons of old greeted each other with ‘May no new things arise!’

11. @Eva Marie:

    Good point. I don’t say we should give in to all of our worst impulses, but (as in just about everything) squeeze the balloon in one place and it’s just going to bulge out more elsewhere. Apparently they don’t teach this in the Ivies. That goes for simple and complex systems and then you get Man. Nothing more complex, convoluted and perverse exists (Except Woman :P).

    PS: That was a quick post deletion!
    PPS: We don’t kick the Dog. That’s not cool. Microwave the Cat instead.

12. Could it be that we all need a little hate in our lives? In the past we could dissipate our frustration with relatively harmless aggression. Politically incorrect jokes, laughing at groups, accents, customs that weren’t our own. Kicking the dog, so to speak. Now all of this is strictly verboten. Finally we now have groups we can treat badly AND feel morally superior (unlike in the past). All that pent up anger can finally be released. And because there’s so much if it built up for so long, we are becoming extraordinarily vicious. (Sorry, I had to fix it.) Plus balloon is a great analogy.

13. Eva thanks for explaining how Zaphod’s reply to your post came to be time-stamped earlier than yours.
    For a second there I though dnaxy’s quantum entanglement was at work!

14. dnaxy, I’ve opined in the past that humans are on a path from tribalism to individualism. We’ve been tribal for most of human existence. It’s only been since the advent of agriculture, some 7000 years ago, that humans began to live somewhat independent lives. Specialization allowed those who had the knowledge or skills to forge a life of some independence. But always the instinct for tribalism has been in us. We gravitate toward the safety of the group. We want to be accepted. (Being cast out of the tribe back in hunter-gatherer days meant almost certain death.) The rights of individuals slowly gained some currency. The Greeks had the idea of citizens and rights. Jesus introduced the worth of each individual soul and the Golden Rule.. The Romans went further with citizens’ rights. But things went backwards during the Dark Ages. Then came the Magna Carta in England and eventually a parliament. The U.S. Constitution provided the most advanced ideas of providing individuals with rights and freedom. Combining Judeo/Christian ethics with a republican form of government that provided for the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Along with the principle of private property protected by law and courts. It is the most advanced sort of anti-tribal plan so far. There is one problem. It also requires adherence to codes of ethics and personal responsibility in order for it to be reasonably successful.

    We yearn to belong, to be accepted, to be approved of, and to be protected. Tyrannies offer that to their adherents. But tyrannies also demand loyalty, submitting to their rules, and a lack of individual freedom or thought. Too many Americans don’t understand what it means to give up their freedom for belonging, acceptance, and security – things that Communism seems to offer. Communism is, IMO, tribalism on a mass scale. That’s why it seems so attractive to many. We still have that tribal DNA.

    We may be heading for another Dark Age. Or an era when personal liberty becomes rare. We can see those ideas looming everywhere now. But I think the idea of personal freedom is now well established. If the U.S. falters and becomes an oligarchy, eventually some future nation will revive the idea of representative government based on personal freedom and improve on it. It’s an evolving story, not one that will suddenly be set right. YMMV.

15. “Of course, this is just what you would expect in tribes. It is standard tribal behavior. We need to figure out how to fix this. Maybe somewhere in the galaxy and beyond there are life forms that have been through this and could teach us how to change.” – dnaxy

    Actually, the Universal Life Form Usually Known as God has been trying to teach us this for a long, long time.

    “And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” – Mark 12:33
    The point of the Parable of the Samaritan is that he and the Jew he rescued were from different tribes; they actually were not “neighbors” in the way we use the term to mean “members of my tribe who live close to me” – the concept is used by Christ in a much more expansive view.

    “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” – 1 Cor 12:13
    “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” – John 13:34
    “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” – Romans 13:10

    Keeping us separated in mutually antagonistic tribes is one of the reasons the Left has waged unremitting war against Jesus, Christians*, and religion in general.

    https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2021/04/02/the_death_of_god_and_the_death_of_higher_education_110561.html

    As colleges and universities become increasingly consumed by identity politics and social justice ideology, higher education is disintegrating. True education is being eclipsed by political movements hell-bent on destroying the very institution that made higher education possible.

    This has been a long time coming, but once education was separated from a religious principle capable of justifying the rational pursuit of knowledge, the demise of the university was merely a matter of time. Sound far-fetched? Let me explain.

    The modern university was invented in Medieval Europe, but its roots go back to antiquity. Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, along with Christian thinkers who came later, held that the cosmos was an intelligibly configured reality and that human beings could flourish only if their lives conformed to that reality. To act justly was to act in a way that corresponded to a reality “outside” of the self, a reality that existed prior to human will. The intellect and the will, therefore, were subordinate to (or obliged by) a divine reality that humans did not create. To act contrary to this intelligible order was to condemn oneself to frustration, unhappiness, and incoherence.

    However, as the Medieval world gave way to what we call the modern era, the unity provided by belief in God began to fray.
    …

    For Plato, the most real is also the most good, and the pursuit of knowledge is inseparable from the pursuit of this transcendent good. Nietzsche declared that “Christianity is Platonism for ‘the people.’” Both posit an intelligible and moral order that is the proper object of rational inquiry.

    Nietzsche believed, though, that the Platonic and Christian construct was breaking down, allowing people to begin “breathing freely again.” Nietzsche recognized that God and truth go hand-in-hand, and on this point he agrees with Plato and the Christians. The Greeks and later the Christians thought of truth as participating in the divine. Heraclitus of Ephesus (d. 475 b.c.) posited that all things come to be in accordance with the logos – for him, a general principle by which the world is governed. When St. John called Christ the logos, he was appropriating this image and explicitly identifying Christ with the divine. Logos means “word,” but it also connotes “rational principle,” suggesting that Christ is the representation of a divine order that can be articulated through language.

    Thus, a commitment to the notion of truth implies a commitment to theism. To be “free spirits” – a term Nietzsche uses regularly – we must extricate ourselves from the idea of God. It is here, Nietzsche believes, that twenty centuries of “training in truthfulness” will actually destroy theism. When those committed to the idea of truth recognize that God is, in fact, dead, their commitment to truth will turn on itself with a vengeance. Once God is jettisoned, the very notion of truth must be put to question. No longer will we speak of truth, dragging along with it the musty implication of theism. Now we can see more clearly that life is not characterized by the search for truth but instead by the quest for power.

    This quest for power is the characteristic feature of modern “higher” education. Students are taught that the world is divided into various groups whose primary identity is reducible to power differentials. A common pursuit of truth is replaced by overt and covert power struggles. In this new and barren world of power, the pursuit of the good, true, and beautiful is replaced by grievance and accusation. Concerted efforts to locate and correct injustice (a concept derived from a theistic account of the world) have been replaced by sweeping claims of “systemic” injustice, in which the entire civilizational edifice must be destroyed in the name of justice. But justice torn from its theistic grounding is merely a blunt instrument of power disguised in the moral language of a rejected world. Such a notion represents a self-refuting enterprise that will usher in not justice but unrestrained power cloaked in the God-haunted language of equality, social justice, and anti-racism.

    Given this account, is it surprising that Christianity is increasingly the target of hostility on college campuses? Yet as the Easter celebration reminds us, the logos cannot be simply killed, buried, and forgotten. The resurrection of Christ is a profound symbol of a truth embedded in the very structure of reality. Logos prevails.

    *I’m talking of the ones who actually follow the doctrines set by Christ.
    “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” – Matt 7:21

    https://notthebee.com/article/this-devotional-has-a-prayer-that-literally-says-dear-god-please-help-me-to-hate-white-people

    “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;” – Matt 5:44

    “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” – 1 John 4:20

16. Doc Zero talks about hate – and its opposite.
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1379769962387021832.html

    American culture and politics are largely based on assuming the worst intentions and motivations for everything individuals say and do. Imagine where we could go if we flipped that script and assumed the best: trusting each other, showing patience and forgiveness.

    There would be mistakes and debacles, of course. People are not always worthy of trust. They don’t always respond to goodwill in kind. Sometimes it’s a mistake to assume good intentions. People don’t always take the second chance offered by forgiveness.

    We wouldn’t want to become utterly naive or dangerously ignorant, of course, but in our conversations and culture, we’ve grown dangerously short of goodwill, and that is a vital resource for a functioning civil society, a nation of sovereign individuals who value liberty.

    That shortage of goodwill is no accident. It was carefully engineered over decades by opportunistic political forces who want us to distrust each other, so we turn to them instead of cooperating, competing, and helping.

    We were taught to hate and distrust each other, to think of ourselves as criminals who must be punished by the all-powerful State, carefully controlled and monitored to ensure good behavior. Our ruling class makes it very clear they feel no goodwill towards us.

    We’re reached the point where the presumption of good intentions is a special privilege reserved for the left-wing elite and their clients. They demand limitless credit for good intentions no matter what horrible things they say, or how destructive their policies are.

    As our culture has been strip-mined of goodwill, we’ve lost our sense of humor, our appreciation for charity, belief in high standards that everyone should strive to reach, respect for aspirations and admiration for achievement. It’s all ugly, cynical identity politics now.

    Identity politics is the total absence of goodwill, the antithesis of a strong civil society. Guilt is presumed instead of innocence. People are hunted and destroyed for careless words. Children are punished for the sins of their long-dead ancestors. There is no mercy.

    Intentions are not understood, but forcibly imputed. The State claims it can read our minds and see into our hearts, while our ability to understand one another is systematically destroyed. Universal standards are treated like oppression instead of elevation.

    The elimination of goodwill was a key step in transitioning from charity to welfare dependency. We were instructed, contrary to all evidence, that free people cannot be trusted to help each other, and only the State truly cares for our well-being.

    Marginalizing religion was important to eliminating goodwill. Judeo-Christian ideals of forgiveness, mercy, charity, and redemption were inconvenient to the statists, so they were ruthlessly excised from our culture – mocked and impugned, replaced with bleak cynicism.

    …
    Maybe the downward spiral is universal. No one wants to be the first to disarm, to be the one trusting sheep in a land full of wolves, to lower their defenses and stop demanding political attention for their grievances. We’re headed toward authoritarianism, not trust and freedom.

    But we COULD pull out of the dive. If any nation could, it’s America. We could start looking at each other and seeing only Americans tomorrow. We could start taking it easy on each other, laughing instead of scowling, looking for the best instead of dreading the worst.

    We could start showing who we are, instead of making assumptions. We could forgive instead of nursing grievances. We could make offers instead of demands. We could bring goodwill back and presume innocence again. /end

17. Neo, offhand, I think you look inside yourself, and see too much of that in others. Too much empathy.

    Yes, there is going to be a reckoning at some point, just as there was for Nazi Germany, but when it happens, all too many will know, inside themselves, that whatever plausible excuses they have to produce to assuage their personal guilt for “going along with the program”, they knew, inside, and before God, all along, that it was because that “program” was compatible with their own person.

    THEY FELT THE HATE, AND REVELED IN IT. They stoked it, and allowed it to be stoked, rather than fighting it, and rejecting it in-person, inside, if not in public.

    I don’t mean to get religious, here, but this is part of what Christianity succeeds on, whether there is a God or not… There is a percentage of humanity capable of hatred, which is anathema to actually meeting with God. THAT, I assert, is the actual “original sin” all our souls need to learn to deal with (this can take multiple lifetimes, but that’s a different heretical set of concepts).

    And no, that’s not as preposterous as you might think. Probably because, like most, you conflate anger and hatred.

    EVERYONE is capable of anger — heck, it seems that even Christ and God are capable of it. Certainly Christ, and the Old Testament God were, just from the Bible.

    But hatred is a very different emotion, and has very different properties, though they are outwardly very similar:

    Anger has a cause. Take away the cause, the anger fades. Because anger “burns” the cause. It’s an internal, **emotional**defense mechanism, as well as an external one.

    Hatred has a target. Take away the target… it will often continue to function, just transfer to a different target. What it’s burning is your very soul (or some natural equivalent for those who reject Judeo-Christianity — id, ego, whatever).

    Not everyone can truly hate. They can get extremely angry, yes, and that can, again, in many many ways, resemble hate, engender even horrific acts in the moment that appear just like hate. But it’s not the same. The driving force behind it just is not the same. Partly because the hater revels in the sensation, while the angry are generally rendered mindless by it. Anger is animalistic in nature. It is RAGE.

    Hatred is an act of the forebrain. It knows exactly what it is doing, and does not care.

    I will assert that most of those who are appealed to by Islam — as well as the majority of the PostModern Left (which is why they are such good buddies — they are kindred spirits, and know it inside) are in that class capable of hatred. And those capable of hatred outside those groups are often far far less common. Part of this ties to a quote about liberals that Truman defined:

    https://www.americanheritage.com/eight-days-harry-truman
    Truman was particularly irked by the “professional liberal,” whom he distinguished from “real liberals” like himself. Professional liberals lived by slogans and saw American politics as an ideological war, which Truman considered alien to the genius of the Democratic party. In his lifetime the party was a sort of political melting pot in which conservative Southerners and moderate border-state men like Truman found common ground with Eastern liberals. “Professional liberals are too arrogant to compromise,” Truman said. “In my experience they were also very unpleasant people on a personal level. Behind their slogans about saving the world and sharing the wealth with the common man lurked a nasty hunger for power. They’d double-cross their own mothers to get it or keep it.”

    Truman’s Professional Liberals are pretty much the majority of the PostModern Left, which is at least 95% of liberals today.

18. Do we “need” hate? huh. Anthro decades ago surmised the Eskimo societies were reasonably peaceful because the killing need was expended on hunting and, as a matter of climate, little or none of that was peaceful vegetation.
    Then there was the “joking cousin”, an individual in the group who was allowed to be the butt of minor cruelties by another individual. And everybody had, most likely were, joking cousins.

    Recent article telling us that Homo, in his various models, was apex predator for at least 2.5 million years. Looking at adaptations, genetic favors done for the digestive system, ability to run forever–see persistence hunting—and even isotope ratios in bones. Plus the absence of a number of large, yummy herbivore types.

    And when 90% of the population was involved in agriculture–us up until maybe 150 years ago, there’s lots of death to be imposed. And you’re eating for dinner what you killed before lunch.

    And just for the orthopedic issue…cutting wood will calm you down. Real satisfaction when the ax or maul hits just right and the wood splits into just-right fireplace fodder. Heavy muscular exertion against the environment, whatever the issue, may be a calming influence.

    Saw, years ago, a close-up of a high school cheer leader weeping because her team had lost. Do we “need” more tragedy in our lives that we fill the shortfall with the inconsequential? Wondered that, even as a kid.

    The mush heads I am forever going on about usually have little going wrong in their lives except family members dying of old age.

    So I guess the question is if we need the sense of conflict, apprehension, hostile universe, aggressiveness in whatever form?

19. Neo said;

    “Many of those who purposely whip people up into this frenzy of hatred in order to increase their own power might well be described as “evil,” but I see the vast majority of the others as followers succumbing to an all-too-human failing.”

    Ah, yes, the “followers.”

    Recall that Stalin, Hitler, et. al., never killed anybody; they just had their “followers” do the dirty work.
    The problem with followers is that they follow. Maybe some need to be more motivated than others to jump onto the bad wagon, but there is never a paucity of followers.

    Followers simply do not think, they follow; think the Jones Town followers. Followers are like the Eloi in HG Wells’ Time Machine.

    It’s bad enough that followers will just follow; but they are more than willing, given the appropriate motivation , to take down the non-followers.
    Think gulags, concentration camps, re-education camps; all built and operated by followers.

20. My point was made many years ago by Lerner and Loewe in the musical Camelot: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z5b7duWzDeQ

21. JohnTyler:

    There are plenty of followers who do not do dirty work at all, but merely allow others to do it whether they know it or not. I have written about this phenomenon before; please see this.

22. OBloodyHell:

    No, I’m not basing this on myself at all. I’m basing it on the people I know – both liberals and leftists. These are not casual acquaintances, either. Many of them are friends and family I know very very well and for a long long time. Others are people I know fairly well. How typical all these people are I don’t know, but I have a fairly large pool of observed people to draw from.

    I seem to have a lot of personality differences with these people, so I definitely don’t use myself as a guide to what makes them tick.

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