Tiny survey/research question if anyone feels like helping by PhoenixRose

Beir bua agus beannacht

Kiki, "crazy" is relative and because it is so vague it doesn't mean anything to me. I think what you're asking and annalyzing is how something becomes "crazy" as opposed to just being different. Every society has certain things that are common. if a belief is common among people then someone with that belief isn't considered weird or odd. But if a person has a belief that doesn't match with those around them then that is considered different, and then in the more extreme that is considered to be brain differences at work. It can very culturally what is considered acceptable to believe and what isn't. In a culture where everyone believes in the gods for instance it would be weird or uncommon for someone to go around spouting about how there aren't any gods at all, they might be considered crazy for thinking something that seems so outrageous. You seem to think its crazy or weird when people believe in higher beings, whereas other cultures would think you were crazy for not believing in them. Those feelins about things like that vary from what we're talking about here somewhat, but you brought it up.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Thursday, September 29, 2011 11:53 AM

STORYMARK

It's probably a bit late to respond, but anyway:

My first reaction is to think of my former Step-Father, who was crazy and abusive (not to me) in many ways. Most of this can be attributed to some pretty horrific experiences in Viet Nam, but I don't rule out that he may have had some mental issues prior to his service, which were brought out and/or amplified by his experiences.

"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Thursday, September 29, 2011 3:48 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Well, I don't have much to say, except that I appreciate reading the posts of all the people who responded to my musing with their musing.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Thursday, September 29, 2011 10:26 PM

FREMDFIRMA

Aye, we do have some interesting and informative discussions in between the partisan ping pong matches, although they can be fun to watch sometimes too.

Makes one ponder though, at what point does such partisanship cross the line into mental illness, I wonder ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Sunday, October 2, 2011 8:34 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

Like anything else it all depends on functionality and how it affects one's daily life, outwardly and inwardly. There are plenty of neurotypical rabid political junkies out there. If being super partisan is the only problem then one could assume that there isn't a mental illness issue. But again I guess the question I'd ask is how this rabid partisanship affects the person's life inwardly and outwardly. And if there's a mental illness present then other aspects of the person's life would be affected, not just their political ideology.

Or was that question just you teasing?

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Sunday, October 2, 2011 10:45 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
Hey everyone, I'm writing a paper, and I'd like to test one of my opinions a little before I build on it, so I have a question for anyone who cares to answer.

What is the very first thing you think when you see or hear the words mental illness? Just word-associate it for me.

(No snark, please. Any response of "liberal/conservative/specific person" won't really help me.)

What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.

Something we all or most of us suffer from throughout our lives at one time or another, to a degree more or less.

An inexact science, something hard to quantify.

A condition of emotional or cognitive impairment that results in someone feeling unable to cope with everyday life and continues on for a period of time (weeks?).

A distortion in perception of reality?

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Sunday, October 2, 2011 10:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

Ah yes, the old "checklist diagnosis" I hate so much, often complicated by docs taking parents/teachers and so on at their word despite them offering biased or incorrect information for their own reasons, on top of a certain "push" by Big Pharma to get their products in use - which to my mind is downright negligence if not malpractice.

It takes a minimum of ninety minutes in a controlled environment to properly diagnose a behavioral disorder, and anything less is just a halfass guess - but when medical coverage doesn't extend to that, it just makes this all the worse.

Plenty of source documentation for that kinda thing is available if you know where to look.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

Sometimes when I look at those checklists, mostly American in nature, I wonder if Americans really are a different species.

Years ago I worked with a practitioner who was madly into 'learned optimism'. I read Seligman and did his checklists and it said I needed to see a psych IMMEDIATELY urgently. Funny thing was that I was feeling in quite a buoyant mood, god help me if I'd done it at my lowest. I figured that it was a cultural thing. My family are Irish descent - 'never expect too much you'll just be disappointed' kind of philosophy, but no more prone to depression than anyone else, probably less because they don't expect too much and are therefore easily delighted when things go well.

Needless to say, I gave the book away.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 3:29 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Magons, you have a point about culture. Bear in mind the differences between living in Australia and living in America. Just as (to use the comparison again) the Japanese work themselves to death, as opposed to Europeans having so much more time off than we do in the States. Most of our lives here aren't healthy, which means they're not healthy mentaly as well as physically. So yes, there no doubt are differences. In some cultures, some mental illnesses are seen as witch doctors or seers or whatever.

Bear in mind, once again, that the DSM-IV (and all the DSM's before it and no doubt after it) stress that it's NOT mental illness if you can function in your life. Sure, "function" is a loose term, and there are certainly those among us who are mentally ill but "function" perfectly (at least for a time), and some who live their entire lives mentally ill and never know it (Bipolar IIs as an example). However, those who "function" well yet are mentally ill won't ever seek treatment, nor will many of those who never know it--it gets passed off, as it was for me, as just "overdramtic", or "eccentric", as it mostly was in the past. That doesn't mean it's not mental illness.

So "functioning" in one's life depends to an extent on the society within which one must function...naturally that makes it different for different cultures. The checklist you mentioned is bullshit, in my opinion; it takes far more than a checklist to determine such things. On the other hand, I did a checklist of bipolarity when I was only dx'd unipolar (depressive), and it was frighteningly right on; once properly dx'd, my life changed. I HAD been dysfunctional my whole life, I just assumed I was "screwed up" or "bad". Knowing otherwise, and knowing I wasn't alone, got me to do many things which have made my life better than I ever could have dreamed. I'm a bear about self-education for those who have been dx'd, it's one of the main things that helped me.

So yes, it's obviously different by culture, but when one's life is bad enough to seek help, one needs help, perhaps in very short term, perhaps as far as meds and a lifelong battle. When you look at the list of people who've been dx'd (some posthumasly), their lives leave little doubt. Many of them are very famous throughout history, some were hospitalized (even back as far as a hundred years) because their actions were self-destructive, and/or they recognized a problem themselves. Many ended in suicide, which I think you might agree means they needed help.

There are so many intricacies to mental illness, and I've learned so much about it, I could go on all day. But of course I won't; that's for another venue. I can only speak to my own life, and if I'd been dx'd before I was 48, my life would have been vastly different. For one thing, I'd NEVER have gone into the corporate world, which is one of he worst places for the mentally ill--especially bipolars!

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Monday, October 3, 2011 4:42 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"If being super partisan is the only problem then one could assume that there isn't a mental illness issue."

Well, what if being super-partisan leads you to deny whole chunks of reality and believe in whole chunks of fables? I know I have referenced this a few times already, but it was a real eye-opener to me which outlines a basic mental glitch in processing reality in the super-partisan - How facts backfire ( http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_
backfire/).

Saying that people are sane except for super-partisanship, seems to me a bit like saying well, you're basically healthy except for that metabolic cystic fibrosis glitch.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Monday, October 3, 2011 5:04 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Well said, Kiki. That's something that's come to bother me, too, as evidenced by my "scientists" thread and what Sig had to say about it.

Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
Contracted Agent of Veritas Oilspillus, code name “Nike”,
signing off

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Monday, October 3, 2011 7:17 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:
Like anything else it all depends on functionality and how it affects one's daily life, outwardly and inwardly. There are plenty of neurotypical rabid political junkies out there. If being super partisan is the only problem then one could assume that there isn't a mental illness issue. But again I guess the question I'd ask is how this rabid partisanship affects the person's life inwardly and outwardly. And if there's a mental illness present then other aspects of the person's life would be affected, not just their political ideology.

Or was that question just you teasing?

No, not teasing, I am actually beginning to honestly wonder where the breakpoint is.

Now, I know that I am heavily biased in that I consider most modern authoritarianism a form of mental illness itself - but even so I mean when it really does affect someones daily ability to function, such as violent outbursts if not attempts at physical assault versus those who challenge their beliefs...

Could it not then, be considered a mental illness, even though it is philosophical in nature rather than by other cause ?

Or perhaps, is it simply a manifestation of something deeply, deeply wrong with them to begin with ?

Questions like these have been preying on my mind lately, is all.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 7:59 AM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Could it not then, be considered a mental illness, even though it is philosophical in nature rather than by other cause ?

There have been some preliminary studies that certain political and philosophical stances show greater activity and size in certain parts of the brain.
There needs to be more research for certain things, but things like compassion practice and contemplative meditation have been widely studied and shown to thicken the cortex and mitigate certain behaviors such as selfishness and impulsiveness. Fearful behavior has been linked to an enlarged amygdala, and some other diseases and problems have been linked to the same area of the brain. Like other things, fearful thoughts can self-perpetuate once the pathways are established in the nervous system, and it can be difficult (but never impossible) to establish new pathways through something like meditative practice or other cognitive focus techniques.

What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 11:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Magons, you have a point about culture. Bear in mind the differences between living in Australia and living in America. Just as (to use the comparison again) the Japanese work themselves to death, as opposed to Europeans having so much more time off than we do in the States. Most of our lives here aren't healthy, which means they're not healthy mentaly as well as physically. So yes, there no doubt are differences. In some cultures, some mental illnesses are seen as witch doctors or seers or whatever.

Bear in mind, once again, that the DSM-IV (and all the DSM's before it and no doubt after it) stress that it's NOT mental illness if you can function in your life. Sure, "function" is a loose term, and there are certainly those among us who are mentally ill but "function" perfectly (at least for a time), and some who live their entire lives mentally ill and never know it (Bipolar IIs as an example). However, those who "function" well yet are mentally ill won't ever seek treatment, nor will many of those who never know it--it gets passed off, as it was for me, as just "overdramtic", or "eccentric", as it mostly was in the past. That doesn't mean it's not mental illness.

So "functioning" in one's life depends to an extent on the society within which one must function...naturally that makes it different for different cultures. The checklist you mentioned is bullshit, in my opinion; it takes far more than a checklist to determine such things. On the other hand, I did a checklist of bipolarity when I was only dx'd unipolar (depressive), and it was frighteningly right on; once properly dx'd, my life changed. I HAD been dysfunctional my whole life, I just assumed I was "screwed up" or "bad". Knowing otherwise, and knowing I wasn't alone, got me to do many things which have made my life better than I ever could have dreamed. I'm a bear about self-education for those who have been dx'd, it's one of the main things that helped me.

To be fair to Seligman, the book isn't about mental health but optimism, although there are correlations between pessimism and mental illness, which was what the checklist I did picked up. I guess my question was culturally is it more the norm to expect people to be optimistic in the US than here? It seems to be an integral value, I see it in the cultural values of a lot of mainstream movies.

If you want something enough and try hard enough and have belief in self, you will achieve what you want in life.

This is not a value that I share.

I see this concept or value seeps into treatments for mental health, such as CBT and Seligman's work. It's kind of the ultimate egoism. Change your thoughts, challenge your negative thinking and you'll feel better. Ironically, it works, at least according to statistics.

Someone once said that when expectations meet reality and they don't match, trouble follows. I wonder if the source of much mental health - particularly the prevanlence of depression is kind of a feature of this in a culture where anything is considered possible so long as you have the will, and that if you are poor and fail it is your fault.

I don't include schizophenia and bi-polar and many other disorders in this.

I feel a bit torn about the idea of overdiagnosing disorders. On one hand there are things in the DSM that really shouldn't be there. There is a terrible trend of pathologising behaviours which just don't need to be pathologised. It has become clear to me in recent years that most of my family would be diagnosed with aspbergers but have functioned normally. I agree with Frem that checklists for these kinds of things really are not appropriate and as you say Niki - the questions should be about the degree that it impacts on your managing life.

On the other hand, thinking of the clients I work with, its much easier when someone comes diagnosed with a mental illness - diagnosed with a plan of managing it - than those who simply present with a mental illness but don't acknowledge, so I concede that there is some worth in naming things.

I find it a very complex issue. Rightly or wrongly I have kind of compartmentalised mental illness into categories -something like this

Depression - mild to moderate - very common - could it be societal factors? Expectations of western democracy vs reality - in a lot of cases

Depression - severe, bipolar, schizophrenia, pychotic disorders - could they be resultant from neurological impairment, environmental or genetically caused.

I know there are a whole lot of others, and it is probably heaps more complex than this, but this is kind of how I see it.

On another tact, I saw Jon Ronson on a panel last night talking about the prevalence of psychopathy in our society. He seems to feel that western capitalism rewards psychopathic behaviour. He was also very funny.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 11:21 AM

Having said that I hate checklists, I will now be wildly inconsistent and post one - features of psychopathy.

1. Considerable superficial charm and average or above average intelligence.

2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking

3. Absence of anxiety or other "neurotic" symptoms considerable poise, calmness, and verbal facility.

4. Unreliability, disregard for obligations no sense of responsibility, in matters of little and great import.

5.Untruthfulness and insincerity

7. Antisocial behavior which is inadequately motivated and poorly planned, seeming to stem from an inexplicable impulsiveness.

7.Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior

8.Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience

9. Pathological egocentricity. Total self-centeredness incapacity for real love and attachment.

10. General poverty ot deep and lasting emotions.

11. Lack of any true insight, inability to see oneself as others do.

12. Ingratitude for any special considerations, kindness, and trust.

13. Fantastic and objectionable behavior, after drinking and sometimes even when not drinking--vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts, pranks.

14. No history of genuine suicide attempts.

15. An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated seX life.

16. Failure to have a life plan and to live in any ordered way, unless it be one promoting self-defeat.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 11:54 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I know you didn't post to me, but there were some things you posted and I wanted to respond.

The US view of the individual and the society is IMO a very sick one. There is this myth that ANYONE can succeed. And when we USED to have a frontier, where anyone who didn't like society's bargain could go and keep themselves at least alive for a while with minimal interaction with the larger society (trading for iron tools and utensils, seeds, dry goods like cloth etc was always a necessity) it was true to some extent. But we no longer have a frontier. The fact is that the economy (and hence the society) depends very much on a captive labor force - large numbers of people who have no choice but to work in and buy from the capitalist economy. And the economy is so structured that there is a large 'losing' class. It seems to me if you don't have an economy where EVERYONE will be able to succeed, then it's not true that ANYONE can succeed. Some will, but the many are destined to not. Simply b/c the economy doesn't have room for them.

But we keep the myth alive. Why is that? Well, for one thing, it gives the believers a sense of control, no matter how false. There is some comfort in thinking you are more than a powerless pawn of a larger system. And it works for TPTB. It is SO much better to have people blaming themselves and others like them for their lot than revolting in the streets for their share of the value they make. It is real mind control.

(I just want to point out that people with a vote DO have power - a power feared by the rich and powerful who do everything in their power to subvert, distract and undermine the voters.)

I remember maybe 15 - 20 years ago there was a lot of speculation that higher rates of depression in females might be biological. Then one psychiatrist looked at the ACTUAL life circumstances of the women he was treating for depression. Many were divorced, which meant that they were financially reduced. They were either working or working more. And they were trying to take care of the children and the household at the same time. Meanwhile, the men experienced increased finances and freedom from responsibility. The psychiatrist's conclusion - no WONDER the women were depressed and the men were not!

Depression due to circumstances accurately perceived as malign and long-term (if not unchangeable) might be the normal, healthy and sane response, even if not pleasant.

Having said that, sometime it's true that people think themselves into a box. They do this because of that, they do that because of that other thing - and so on down the line. And they can think of no way out b/c it's all linked together into one vast rationale for why things HAVE to be the way they are. In those cases CBT might work.

And then there are people who are truly biologically depressed. High calcium levels are notorious for that. Bipolar and major depressive disorders I'm thinking are another example.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Monday, October 3, 2011 12:29 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

But we keep the myth alive. Why is that? Well, for one thing, it gives the believers a sense of control, no matter how false. There is some comfort in thinking you are more than a powerless pawn of a larger system. And it works for TPTB. It is SO much better to have people blaming themselves and others like them for their lot than revolting in the streets for their share of the value they make. It is real mind control.

I see that in the attitude that the poor are poor because they are lazy and/or stupid. Either way it is their fault. I was just reading that kind of mentality on the taxes thread with the bragging (as I saw it) about being debt free and having done it all off one's own back. It's there inherently between the lines (or maybe not even so much) that if you struggle in life, its your own fault and having everything you need, you wouldn't give a brass farthing to a one legged, one eyed ex vet crawling along your street.

It's the 'I'm alright Jack' mentality - maybe that is colloquial, but I hope you get what I mean.

we have it as well here, maybe just not as much, not yet. But its a growing philosophy. A friend of mine said it was 'wealth envy' to decry the fact that CEO's of failing companies are given multi million dollar golden handshakes.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 12:34 PM

BYTEMITE

In acknowledgment of the shortcomings of checklists, I'll attempt to check-list myself honestly.

1. Depends 2. Depends 3. Depends 4. Depends 5. Depends 6. Depends 7a. Depends 7b. Depends
8. Depends 9. Depends 10. Depends 11. Depends 12. Depends 13. Depends 14. Depends 15. Depends
16. Depends

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Monday, October 3, 2011 12:35 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Hey, thanks for replying.

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Monday, October 3, 2011 12:37 PM

BYTEMITE

1kiki: Interesting. We seem to be in agreement.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 12:53 PM

Beir bua agus beannacht

Kiki, you are quick to point out extreme and, in your opinion, possibly mental illness induced beliefs in others, but you forget, or fail to agknowledge, that you have some pretty extreme beliefs yourself. Extreme beliefs in themselves don't necessarily mean someone has a mental illness. Those beliefs need to be causing physical or emotional harm for oneself or others and be hampering daily functioning to be considered part of mental illness.

Which goes back to what Frem is pondering. Again I must say that you have some pretty extreme beliefs yourself so saying that the other people with extreme beliefs, if they lean towards violence, have mental illness isn't fair in itself. Its all a matter of degree and I know you know that, I think you're wondering where the tipping point is and I can only say it depends on the individual, the situation etc.

Magon's. I don't think you're on the fence about diagnosing, I think you have a sensible view on it. There's no point in labeling someone if they are a bit different but it isn't altering daily functioning, like your family having sometendencies that corrilate with Asperger's, they do fine in life without any assistance or treatment or anything, they have friends, they work, they are content, they do what they want to do, so why try and label something that doesn't need labeling? I agree totally. But of course on the other end if there is a significant enough difference in someone's brain and experience realted thereto then a diagnosis is good because it can help the situation to be addressed and worked to find the best treatments or techniques for managing and assisting with it and getting things going as well as possible for the person. I wouldn't call that on the fence, I'd say you have feelings on both sides of the issue that work together to balance it out and give you a wider picture.

Thanks for that list, clearly I'm not a psychopath. :)

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Monday, October 3, 2011 1:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by RionaEire:

Thanks for that list, clearly I'm not a psychopath. :)

That is exactly what a psychopath would say, btw.

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Monday, October 3, 2011 1:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
In acknowledgment of the shortcomings of checklists, I'll attempt to check-list myself honestly.

1. Depends 2. Depends 3. Depends 4. Depends 5. Depends 6. Depends 7a. Depends 7b. Depends
8. Depends 9. Depends 10. Depends 11. Depends 12. Depends 13. Depends 14. Depends 15. Depends
16. Depends

LOL

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Monday, October 3, 2011 1:05 PM

1. Considerable superficial charm and average or above average intelligence.
TICK
2. Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking
CROSS
3. Absence of anxiety or other "neurotic" symptoms considerable poise, calmness, and verbal facility.
BIG CROSS
4. Unreliability, disregard for obligations no sense of responsibility, in matters of little and great import.
CROSS
5.Untruthfulness and insincerity
CROSS

7. Antisocial behavior which is inadequately motivated and poorly planned, seeming to stem from an inexplicable impulsiveness.
CROSS

7.Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
CROSS

8.Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience
TICK/CROSS
9. Pathological egocentricity. Total self-centeredness incapacity for real love and attachment.
CROSS
10. General poverty ot deep and lasting emotions.
CROSS

11. Lack of any true insight, inability to see oneself as others do.
? HOW WOULD I KNOW ?
12. Ingratitude for any special considerations, kindness, and trust.
CROSS

13. Fantastic and objectionable behavior, after drinking and sometimes even when not drinking--vulgarity, rudeness, quick mood shifts, pranks.
TICK
14. No history of genuine suicide attempts.
TICK
15. An impersonal, trivial, and poorly integrated seX life.
CROSS
16. Failure to have a life plan and to live in any ordered way, unless it be one promoting self-defeat.
TICK

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Monday, October 3, 2011 1:29 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

"Extreme beliefs in themselves don't necessarily mean someone has a mental illness."

Ahem. If you read my posts you'll notice that I acknowledge my views of insanity might be different from other people's views. But I don't think extreme beliefs alone are insanity. It's the x-ing off of huge chunks of reality in order to maintain those beliefs that I perceive to be 'crazy'. And - on the whole - if you look at our right-whingers, you'll find a severe dismissal of fact in favor of extreme belief.

Also, I am on the fence about socially acceptable delusions. Some delusions are not socially acceptable - like PN's constant blaming of everything on the Jew / Nazi / British Queen / Bilderberg / Mason conspiracy - and we clearly recognize it as disordered thinking (or a very good facsimile for google purposes).

But what about extreme political belief? Religion? If there are other people who think like you do does it make it any less crazy? OTOH, if you grow up surrounded by those ideas, are you merely doing what normal people do - which is adapt to the society around you?

I'm still thinking about that.

As a challenge to you, and not anything I am asking you to reply to, but just to think about - since coming here you've been exposed to many different ideas. Have you run across any set of facts or a logical analysis which has shifted any of your beliefs?

Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in bonuses, and paid no taxes?

Yeah, me neither....

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Monday, October 3, 2011 3:37 PM