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the fact that you gotta ask questions just shows how ignorant you are!

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your stupid, inane questions with a response?

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Nothing better than some goofy wingnut starting a thread to attack libruls, and finding themselves faced with questions they can't bring themselves to answer.

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Illogical Thinking: A group of students from Peninsula College were given various memory and inference tests. For example, they listened to a tape of two lawyers debating a school segregation case on a McNeil/Lehrer News Hour program. It was found that High RWAs indeed had more trouble remembering details of the material they’d encountered, and they made more incorrect inferences on a reasoning test than others usually did. Overall, the authoritarians had lots of trouble simply thinking straight.

Intrigued, I gave the inferences test that Mary Wegmann had used to two large samples of students at my university. In both studies high RWAs went down in flames more than others did. They particularly had trouble figuring out that an inference or deduction was wrong. To illustrate, suppose they had gotten the following syllogism:

All fish live in the sea.
Sharks live in the sea..
Therefore, sharks are fish.

The conclusion does not follow, but high RWAs would be more likely to say the reasoning is correct than most people would. If you ask them why it seems right, they would likely tell you, “Because sharks are fish.” In other words, they thought the reasoning was sound because they agreed with the last statement. If the conclusion is right, they figure, then the reasoning must have been right. Or to put it another way, they don’t “get it” that the reasoning matters--especially on a reasoning test.

Not only do authoritarian followers uncritically accept conclusions that support their beliefs, they have a problem with evidence in general. They do not in general have a very critical outlook on anything unless the authorities in their lives have condemned it for them. Then they can be extremely critical.

Authoritarians’ ideas are poorly integrated with one another. It’s as if each idea is stored in a file that can be called up and used when the authoritarian wishes, even though another of his ideas--stored in a different file-- basically contradicts it. We all have some inconsistencies in our thinking, but authoritarians can stupify you with the inconsistency of their ideas. Thus they may say they are proud to live in a country that guarantees freedom of speech, but another file holds, “My country, love it or leave it.” The ideas were copied from trusted sources, often as sayings, but the authoritarian has never “merged files” to see how well they all fit together.

It’s easy to find authoritarians endorsing inconsistent ideas. Just present slogans and appeals to homey values, and then present slogans and bromides that invoke opposite values. The yea-saying authoritarian follower is likely to agree with all of them. They don’t seem to scan for self-consistency as much as most people do. Similarly they tended to agree with “A government should allow total freedom of expression, even it if threatens law and order” and “A government should only allow freedom of expression so long as it does not threaten law and order.”

When your ideas live independent lives from one another it is pretty easy to use double standards in your judgments. You simply call up the idea that will justify (afterwards) what you’ve decided to do. High RWAs seem to get up in the morning and gulp down a whole jar of “Rationalization Pills.”

When your ideas live independent lives from one another it is pretty easy to use double standards in your judgments. You simply call up the idea that will justify (afterwards) what you’ve decided to do. High RWAs seem to get up in the morning and gulp down a whole jar of “Rationalization Pills.”

Authoritarians on the other hand, spring-loaded for hostility, seem all wound up to clamp right down on lots and lots of people. So when authoritarians reproach other people who call for censorship, the reproach may be justified. But a lot of windows probably got broken in the authoritarians’ own houses when they flung that stone

Dogmatism: The Authoritarian’s Last Ditch Defense. By dogmatism I mean relatively unchangeable, unjustified certainty. And I’m certain that is right, beyond a doubt. If you want a hint as to how dogmatic you are, simply answer the items below;
The things I believe in are so completely true, I could never doubt them.
My opinions and beliefs fit together perfectly to make a crystal-clear “picture” of things.
There are no discoveries or facts that could possibly make me change my mind about the things that matter most in life.
I am absolutely certain that my ideas about the fundamental issues in life are correct.

The see how you feel about these items:

There are so many things we have not discovered yet, nobody should be absolutely certain his beliefs are right.
It is best to be open to all possibilities, and ready to reevaluate all your beliefs.
Flexibility is a real virtue in thinking, since you may well be wrong.
I am a long way from reaching final conclusions about the central issues in life.

Guess who tend to strongly agree with the first set of items, and strongly disagree with the second set. Yep, high RWAs. Which, all kidding aside, suggests they have a dogmatic streak in them a mile wide and a thousand denials deep.

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I'd love to see the frustration on RiverRappy's face as his screeds are so easily shot down, and he's faced with questions that might *gasp* force him to analyze his views.

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not intellectual : instinctive, unreasoning; dealing with crude or elemental emotions

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you've admitted you're a total loser in life, just a lowly shipping clerk right? What makes you think you can question, insult or harrass me?

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The original post I put up was complete. Pictures of Bush protesters with their threatening signs, and a few articles about attacks against Repub interests. Nothing more, nothing less. It was you and your pals that went gaga over it.

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is it fair to say that you assert: 1) the left can't complain too loudly about idiots on the right because 2) there are idiots on the left?

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Come on now, find a way to spin, find a way to draw one of your world-famous non-sensical moral equivalencies for me. Will ya, huh?

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I have to call them out on their utter hypocrisy when they say Tea Party people are violent and dangerous with their protest signs and their anti-Obama rhetoric

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I'm no RNC lover by a long shot. I posted just yesterday my utter contempt for Chairman Steele. It's a real shame that they cannot agree to be civil in their Govt roles, but the reason is pretty obvious. They want to both sow and ride the wave of discontent with Obama and Dem's Congress all the way until November; while the Dems want to either move on to new business, or for the betterment of their fund-raising efforts, continue to accuse Repubs of being cheerleaders for anti-Obama elements out there. It's all politics. American citizens are merely the useful idiots manipulated back and forth in this endless war of ideology.

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I sometimes ask myself if wingnuts are self aware enough to even grasp such a concept. And I generally answer "nope."

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can anyone show me all the heavily-armed anti-government LEFT-WING militias

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I'd like to point out that this is illogical. If the Democrats want to continue to point to Republicans as racist/ inflammatory/ extreme (to better fill their coffers) then they would WANT Republicans to keep up their current behavior. They would not have offered to join with them in a mutual civility pact.

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