Is being 'right-wing' a mental disorder?

Right-wing 'thought' a mental illness? It has long been known that it does not involve 'thought' in any recognizable sense of the word but apart from individual right-wingers who have managed to seize power and enact their disorders on the world stage (Hitler, Mussolini, Genghis Khan, Bush...) merely believing in such ideas has been regarded as a mild eccentricity to be humoured.

Unfortunately this is no longer possible.

An increasingly concerned number of health professionals and objective observers are starting to believe that it might indeed be a hitherto undiscovered sociopathic condition.... what was once merely a political position has now transmogrified into something more worrying and more indicative of a neurological disfunction akin to a species of manic depression or some other as yet uncategorized disorder.

Concerned by the accumulating evidence and being an objective observer I decided to conduct my own research - and where better than our own petri dish here at AI which seems to breed or attract such symptoms to an alarming degree.

The first port of call I made was to choose at random an well-known and widespread insane belief: that God created the universe 10,000 years ago (note: the results may be skewed upwards as many right-wingers are literalists and believe it was 4000). Here is a statistical representation of a Gallup Poll:



Source: Gallup Website

As you can see, 60% of Republicans hold this belief which is indistinguishable from similar delusions we know from the annals of psychiatry.

Moreover, only 4% accept evolutionary theory.

Moving on to Politics - an area which one might expect be subject to more rational analysis. Unfortunately the statistics again - shockingly - dash this hope:

1. 63 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a socialist
2. 39 percent think Obama should be impeached
3. 24 percent said Obama wants the terrorists to win
4. 31 percent agreed with the statement that Obama is a racist who hates white people.
5. 36 percent of respondents do not believe the president was born in the US
6. 73 percent said openly gay men and women should not be allowed to teach in public schools.
7. 23 percent, want their state to secede from the union.

Source

And yet again - a common theme emerges in this Poll:


The study of this disorder is now in its infancy although it seems that it bears disturbing similarities to an existing psychological imbalance: True Believer Syndrome.


The similarities are marked but health professionals are now facing the terrifying possibility that the current right-wing version of 'True Believer Syndrome' has metastasized into a form of 'mental virus' which may be communicable and highly contagious unless one is properly innoculated or has otherwise contracted some form of immunity.

Wtf????

Do you think that there is such a thing as a mental disorder?

Do you think some people have one? Or do you mean that you don't disagree with the disorders?

Kind of proves the point if it's the latter and if it's the former then it kind of suggests you are describing your own views in the reply no?

It is strange to see something very odd in action here...

If a poster posts something denigrating to the Right then hordes of right-wingers crawl out of the woodwork to defend themselves.... always the same faces. The one notable rational exception who does not need to 'man the barricades' seems to be SDW....

This can only be that they feel themselves so identified with the caricature (this is in itself of great concern - none of them deny the rabidness of their views..they just object to people pointing it out from the Left) that it undermines their stability.

Look at it from the other point of view: every day here 'the Left' are lambasted in a series of absurd and reductionist non sequiturs and other superficial nonsensical assessments.

Hardly ever do any of 'the Left' feel the need to rush to panic stations and mount a defence.

From my pov - and I would say I do hold the somewhat extreme left-wing view in some regards - I just laugh.....I never feel the need to defend 'the Left' or take any of it as a personal attack....it's just what wingers do...it's their thing. It can even be hilarious and uplifting at times. One would worry if they were not sniping.

So why is this? Why are they so insecure?

Surely such insecurity IS by definition a mental imbalance? I'm not trying to attack anyone...I just want to understand the mechanism...it's fascinating....

Or is it just that those of us on the Left are super-balanced and of above normal in terms of psychological integration?

Yes...it's because of this I am asking....

Savage has a book that states clearly that Liberalism IS a mental disorder...Only it doesn't mean that..it means the opposite.

I ask a question... Only I don't mean that - what I mean is that it IS.

Though I ask instead. And Savage means to ask but states a definitive instead.

I got all that...that's how it works with the Right - things are their opposites. I get it. My question though is: is this not evidence of a disorder?

I mean if it is rainy and I say it is sunny then that means there's a problem right? Or is the problem if I say water is wet?

I'm just trying to understand.....

Why can't we just discuss the statistics though? I didn't make them up...you object to my MO - fair enough...may even be lame, probably is.

But the statistics....what about those?

Can we discuss them....I genuinely find them very disturbing..

True...the possibility of any debate or rational response is zero.... so you're right, this being a debating forum with no-one prepared to defend their position makes one wonder why one does bother.

On the plus side - I just realized why there are 99% Anti-Obama threads here: no Lefties bother to post threads because the Right cannot even argue their corner.

The only people capable of formulating a response - any response almost - are on the Left. Hence the deluge....

The parallel bizarro universe just went to 11.....

This is a text-book example of what I mentioned above...

I never take offense at such things...I find them highly amusing - they kind of take the edge off the inherent threatening nature of the Right. Kind of like if Hitler stopped mid-spiel in a Munich beer-hall to talk about little green men...kind of makes the rest of it somehow less concerning (though you know deep-down it probably shouldn't).

But despite all this (was this Trumpy quote an ad-hom btw? I am never sure these days) that any Left-wing poster who dares to stick their head over the parapet has to endure I am still puzzled...

If I or any other Leftie poster had said this then I think there might be quite a few knickers in a twist. Luckily it is the preserve of the Right to come up with this sort of stuff so we can all have a laugh!

Why? Let's analyze this...

A poll that shows that 60% of Republicans hold a belief that the earth is 10,000 years old.

My claim is that this is tantamount to insanity.

The poll shows that this insanity is significantly higher among Right-wingers.

I don't see the problem...YOU might not want to debate it but that is because you are one of the people who believe it and therefore feel offended that I call you insane.

But what else is it?

I don't mean it personally..I'm sure you're quite nice and all....and I never singled you out or meant you specifically but if someone believes the earth is flat then this is insane right?

And surely we are allowed to say so? You can even defend your position...show us why it is a sane position...

But my argument was itself a ridiculous parallel of what most Right-wingers offer up here as 'rational debate' - you did get that didn't you???

When science has proved something then those who stubbornly refuse to accept the proof asre irrational.

If they not only refuse to accept the proof but organize to 'disprove' the Science then under those circumstances I believe a case could be made that they are suffering from a psychological imbalance.