Libs mentally ill

I hadn’t seen Tracey for a while until I bumped into her the other day in Dick Smith’s looking at talking bathroom scales. I told you she had joined the Fabian Society. Well, she already seems a little over them.

It seems that they had been to see her partner’s dealer’s cabin cruiser. A big new one. He’s doing really well out of the Global Economic Crisis. He’s named the new boat “Kev n’ Therese”. He said that he was thinking of buying a local ALP branch to show his gratitude to the PM for all he is doing to encourage private enterprise in these dark days. Tracey’s partner Bruce, thinking of her Fabian contacts, suggested she could help. Unfortunately they weren’t much use. All they could come up with were a couple of Green branches. Tracey is pretty disillusioned. What good are branches when he already owns the trunk, she said mysteriously.

Anyway, she asked me if I knew any Labor ones that are up for sale. Not too far from the marina. She had looked on eBay, she said, but not found any. I said I would have a think.

Tracey asked me if I knew that the Libs are mentally ill. I said I didn’t know that. She said it was true. Her PhD supervisor had emailed her proof. I’m glad to see that she hasn’t given away her university studies.

She said that it was very interesting and that her supervisor had sent her an extract from a book called The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. The author was a US psychiatrist, Tracey said.

Oh, American, I said. Yes, said Tracey.

Oh, “liberals”, I said. Yes, “Liberals”, said Tracey.

Later she emailed me a copy of what her supervisor had sent:

Once the liberal neurosis is no longer disguised as a rational political philosophy, it can be analyzed and treated in whatever manner is necessary to overcome symptomatic distress and functional impairment.

The condition’s major defects in autonomy and mutuality must be addressed. Prominent among them are a basic distrust of cooperation; false perceptions of victimization; intense envy and underlying shame; a need to vilify and blame others; deficits in self-reliance and self-direction; a marked fear and avoidance of responsibility; infantile demandingness; an intense and often paranoid hostility; a need to manipulate, control, and depend on others; a lack of courage, resilience, and frustration tolerance; and various defects in ego ideals, conscience, and impulse control.

Therapy must also address the liberal’s self-pathology, especially his immaturity, self-centeredness, and grandiosity; his lack of empathy for and recognition of others; his marked sense of entitlement; and his impaired self-esteem and identity. Educational programs to cure the liberal’s ignorance of free-market economics, libertarian political process, constitutional democracy, and the psychology of cooperation rank high among therapeutic priorities.

Crikey, it convinced me.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Lyle H. Rossiter, The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness

Harry Stein, I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican: A Survival Guide for Conservatives Marooned Among the Angry, Smug, and Terminally Self-Righteous