nservatives and the last time I checked there was no shortage of liberal speeches and liberal judicial opinions, I take them at their word that there have been few psychological studies of liberalism and many of conservatism. But perhaps, just perhaps, this fact illuminates a certain bias in the profession. Look at it this way. I have no doubt there is no shortage of psychological studies of murderers, rapists, people who think they’re Napoleon, and people who think Carrot Top is funny. But I suspect there’s very little data on people who like to have cereal and orange juice in the morning. Why? Because the former category of people are considered abnormal. People who eat cereal and juice in the morning aren’t particularly interesting because they aren’t seen as particularly different. So it is with conservatives and liberals. Conservatives are strange creatures. They have strange views. They defend cruelty and inequality while liberals, well, they’re baseline. They’re like, well, me. How else to explain the vast stockpile of research on conservatives and the comparative dearth of data on liberals? And if that is part of the equation, then maybe the data is skewed because researchers found what they wanted to find. They were only looking for their car keys where the light is good. The idea that the psychiatric-therapeutic establishment is politically biased is hardly new,Toms Shoes Outlet Sale. In 1964, 1,189 psychiatrists asserted that even though they’d never met Barry Goldwater, never mind diagnosed him, he was still so mentally unstable and paranoid that in their scientific opinion he could not be trusted with the power of the presidency. So outrageous was this “petition” of psychiatrists launched by Fact magazine, that Goldwater actually won a libel suit, which is almost impossible for a politician. In more recent times, we’ve seen a sharp rise in what I would call the left’s medicalization of dissent. Today, on college campuses, liberal and left-wing students who burn newspapers, shout down opponents,cheap toms shoes, accuse conservatives of racism, rape, whatever, are generally treated with dignity. Conservative students whose behavior falls far short of this sort of thing are often sent to counseling or therapy. My guess is that drugging conservatives will come next. A couple quick examples: When a University of New Hampshire professor compared writing to sex — “You and the subject become one,” he said — he was forced to apologize and seek counseling. When a law lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania said, “We have ex-slaves here who should know about the Thirteenth Amendment” and was also forced to get his brain checked out by an approved therapist. The justification for this sort of thing is not merely that the “conservatives” — broadly defined to include anyone not up-to-speed on what constitutes insensitive language — need to get right in the head but that the liberal young men and women who feel “oppressed” by contrary views, nasty-sounding words, nude pictures in the classroom, “hate” words, etc. are right in the head. In other words, it’s “normal” according to the reigning authorities of academia to have the self-esteem of a delicate soufflé, prone to imploding at the slightest discordant vibration, but it is abnormal to disagree with the prevailing worldview. And that gets us to the heart of why this study is more bogus than a $6 dollar Rolex,cheap toms. Virtually all of the characteristics the authors attribute to the right can be equally laid at the feet of the left. If you think left-wingers have a high tolerance for ambiguity, tell one it’s not clear that Head Start does any good at all. Talk to them about racial differences. Say: “Even if gay marriage were worth doing, there would be many devastating negative consequences.” Mention that a factory closing can be a good thing. Tell them it’s okay for economists to put a specific monetary value on a human life. Tell them intelligence tests measure intelligence. Tell them something can be simultaneously bad and constitutional. Indee Related articles:

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