re: #267 Dark_Falcon

Those willing to laud Putin hate Obama so much they are now willing to spit on Ronald Reagan’s grave just to get their hate fix. The degeneration of a junkie is just pathetic to watch.

I truly think at least half the country lacks impulse control and suffers from some kind of mental distress, increased by not being able to think rationally. Many people simply feel expendable, unimportant in any capacity, and lay the blame for their feelings wrongly by lashing out at whoever they think is “inferior”. They feel they must be individualistic, competitive, and exclusive, at the expense of real community, cooperation, and friendship—except for their own “kind”.

It’s not just one class, or age, of people, but cuts across all lines and is expressed in many forms. Many people lack coping skills and just throw in the towel, allowing their biases to rule in order to be accepted somehow, even if it means cutting off their conscience when they know what they think or say is harmful to others. This is the great appeal of the right wing, fundie/prosperity type churches, talk radio, online forums, blogs, and confirmation-bias politicians who know how to play this game.

One of the books that informed my thinking many years ago was Philip Slater’s “The Pursuit of Loneliness”, and his “Toilet Assumption”. It remains as true today as when I read it 40 yrs ago. amazon.com