"Top shrink concludes liberals clinically nuts". Don't shoot the messenger!

I think one person's opinion really should not be treated as a scientific "fact." If he's really concerned more about people than by the number of books he sells, he should do a more thorough scientific study. If he's right, does he offer a solution to fix the perceived problem? If he's wrong, would he admit it and move on?

Just a hunch but I'm betting this shrink is a Republican. I do have to say as an Independent I am tired of the things Republican supporters say. They alienate everyone except whoever is exactly like them or 100% agrees with them. I've seen the Dem's called Socialists and compared to Hitler. I've seen Liberalism classified as a mental disease (before this topic), I've seen them attack the Dem's with pure lies and conjecture. They also are totally alienating huge growing voting blocks, minorities, gays, etc. And that's not even getting into the Religion aspect (which would take pages to go into). I have to say right now I am totally turned off by the Republican Party. I've never been a big fan of the Democratic Party but they seem much more "sane" to me.

Both liberals and conservatives as sterotypically described by the other are 'nuts'. I believe the sane, intelligent people are libertarian leaning but some of them come from the liberal perspective and others the conservative. Anyone bent on trying to tell others how to live their lives is unbalanced. Liberals and conservatives seem to primarily differ in what behaviors they want to mandate. Who needs either group? In short, I think the author is correct about liberals, but that his next book could very well be about conservatives.

Of course they are nuts. This isn't news to me, and I suspect that a lot of conservatives would agree with me. Liberals have no concept of personal responsability... they think they are "owed" such trhings as a living wage, a good job, free universal health care, and that speciial groups deserve special consideration because they are "disadvantaged". They believe that the rights of the many should take precedence over the rights of the few, or of the one, and they believe that our personal preferences and the things we do should be subject to government legislation.... such as smoking... along with a host of other things. Meanwhile, those of us that believe in individual rights and personal responsibility are considered selfish, cold and unfeeling... or that we need "anger management" when we finally have enough of the bullsh!t. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that liberals are nuts... not to mention they are illogical, immoral, and in denial. The personal choices mentioned in the article is a fine example... there are certain groups who claim that they can't help the way they are because they were born that way, which is simply another way to avoid taking responsibility for the chices that they made. Then there is the global warming issue which is a current favorite among the crazy liberals... who seem to be intent on destroying our economy and our infrastructure in the mistaken belief that they can control nature. Not only are the liberals insane... they also suffer from delusions of granduer, and a bad case of stupidity as well. They need a keeper, while the conservatives are quite capable of handlng our own affairs without goverment interference. By the way, being rch is not evil, if it wasn't for the rich, then the working class would not be working. Taxing the rich, the smokers and anyone else as a punitive measure, or because the rich need to "give back to society" is also an indicator of liberal insanity.

Hello Ladyluna Well, here goes my little star again.lol But, I think they are all certifiable this year. They cannot stand still on an issue for more than a few days at a time. It depends totally on what part of the country they are in, on what their stand on the issues is, on any given day. I do not know how they keep up with themselves. That may be where the clinically nuts part comes in. Only I would not just apply it to the Democrats. I would be fair and spread it around! Make it nonpartisan. Shalom~Salaam~Peace

Remember the age old definition of insanity? "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." In my mind that is what liberals are doing. Socialized society has failed everytime it has been tried. It can not support itself and it undermines the human spirit. Human beings have the drive to overcome challenges inherent in them. As our government provides our needs for us, they undermine that drive. We will become lazy and unappreciative. I am a certified budget counselor. I work with people in financial difficulties to not only create a strategy to get through the financial valley but help them succeed. I have heard over and over again statements like these: "If I earn more than $xxx, they will reduce my monthly Social Security check." "If I go to work I wont get food stamps anymore." "If only I could get free daycare, I would go back to work." In each case, people are making the decision to stay in their hardship so that they can continue to get goverment assistance. People can earn WAY more than their Social Security check can provide. But they feel that they have earned that so they give up earning $1200 a month to keep the $850 SS check. They refuse to take jobs where they can earn hundreds of dollars per week to keep getting hundreds of dollars in food stamps per month. And they wont pay $200 a week for daycare so that they can earn $400 per week. If that's not insanity, I don't know what is.

..wow.. that was awesome! :)

I wonder what he would say about a group of people so paralyzed with irrational fear that they'll believe anything they hear from the man in the White House, no matter how incompetent he's proven himself to be. They also tend to be a group of people who don't believe the mainstream news outlets because they're biased in a certain direction, and their source of that knowledge is admittedly biased in the other direction. That's just a couple of examples, and I know not everyone on "the right" thinks that way. I imagine this doctor does, though. According to what was quoted here, the basis for his argument is just the list of lies that the right has been saying about the left for many years now.

Hello ladyluna, Interesting discussion, indeed! I have not read his work, so I can’t present a fully informed analysis, as yet. Thus, my analysis and judgment of him and his work is purely based on the quotes provided, acceptable practice rules and principles in Psychiatry and scientific community. One of the most common and widely practiced methods to make huge profits from a publication is to handle a controversial subject and then time it well so as to get maximum attraction and hence the maximum profits. As people usually are tempted to ask themselves, "let's see what it is". Same has been the case for some best seller novels, movies, and other sort of literature (memoir, poetry etc), like ‘The Da Vinci Code’, Anti-religious materials, racist issues etc. And, though I love science to step in every field of human endeavor and every matter of importance, I find it deplorable to use science to create uncalled-for or at least “hasty” controversial conclusions that too in open publication for ‘public consumption’. Thus, seeing his statement about democratic presidential candidates and the statement “Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the “most” important principles on which our freedoms were founded …” (emphasis on ‘most’ added) as well as the perfect timing of his publication, it is not difficult to see that his is a politically (directly or indirectly) motivated publication aimed at generating huge profits even if he had “a life virtually free of activism and links to "the vast right-wing conspiracy.".” Moreover, there is probably no other field which has a strong distaste for oversimplification as much as the field of psychology and psychiatry. In the field of psychology, every individual is a ‘unique’ subject. So, when he gives sweeping statement, considering “all” liberals to be alike, he is stepping out of established principles of his own field, whose credentials, he is using for support and to try to substantiate his theory. "A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation's citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do." I totally agree with him over everything in above paragraph except for the part, “as liberals do”! similarly, at least 3 out of 4 points in his “liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority in the population by…” can be used, very adequately, against conservatives. Many of his claims can be equally applied to conservatives if the definitions are used in other sense, i.e. both Liberals and Conservatives can use the same concept for totally opposite gains and theories, like individual sovereignty, differences in talent, free choice etc. Thus, his connection between cause and effect is not necessarily true i.e. a social scientist, a political leader and a legislator who DO understands human nature will not approve of many so called conservative initiatives either and may approve of some Liberal initiatives based on same principles. I do understand that it is very complicated that’s why I call his assessment to be an oversimplification based on what has been presented. Plus, he has ignored, by this oversimplification, those liberals who are conservatives too, LOL! Like me. From one angle I would look like a liberal and a socialist, and from another a pure conservative and a capitalist, within same set of conditions and definitions as provided by the author, and I believe that there are many like me. But, I am neither a Liberal nor a conservative, neither a socialist nor a capitalist as such. I would admit that I am not informed about his earlier presentations of his findings in any scientific conference or journal. So, if he has already presented his work and got general acceptability then consider this paragraph as “Null and Void”! But, then I would like to see his reviewed articles. Why I called it hasty is because before presenting his work for scrutiny from the members of scientific community and specifically his field, he brought it open into public by publishing a book. Generally (though not always), in scientific community, researchers try to make/acquire a general consensus before putting their theory/work in public sphere in the form of a book. I know for a fact and can tell you that there is a lot of corruption in scientific community too. And, many, many big names aren’t free of guilt. I know few in my own field and thus, by extrapolation, I can only imagine how many more will be there in whole of scientific community. So, if he hasn’t presented his work before the people who can critically question then I would assume that there is guilt involved and that he was “hasty” in getting profits. As to your question about possible effects of this book on his practice: I don’t really think there will be any considerable effect. Only the people with strong held “Liberal” ‘label’ may not feel inclined to go to him and the ones with strong held conservative label may have a penchant to visit this “enlightened” psychiatrist rather than another. The majority, the people in between, won’t care what political or ‘scientific-political’ beliefs he has, they will only be concerned with their well being and as long as he is a ‘good psychiatrist’, they will continue to visit him. Given that he is an established professional already, I don’t see a considerable effect on his practice anyway.

There are Quacks in every profession. :-)

Oh, you know I think that is just hysterical, but you know, most people are probably clinically nuts. I am an enthusiastic fan of Dr. Thomas Szasz who wrote a great book back in 1974 called The Myth of Mental Illness. In truth what is officially pegged as rational is always whatever people with power and influence are able to corral long enough to impose as standards on the rest of us. Nice tidbit, however.

That's hilarious. I agree with some of the things he said, but I wouldn't necessarily label them clinically nuts. And those are hardcore lefties, which hardly anyone is. But either way, the book would probably make me laugh.

Hi Ladyluna...hope all is well with you. This is a great topic and I am glad you posted it. I checked out the site and bookmarked it to back and read it again. My only concern with his perspective is that it is...first and foremost based on HIS research and HIS opinion. In my view he loses a certain amount of credibility by doing a cooker cut job. His statements could just as easy be applied to conservatives...and maybe even more so...for example: "A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do," he says. "A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do" To me this lacks objectivity and fair-mindedness. Consequently his biased views makes the built in antennae on top of my head (it sends out alerts when something is not as it appears) start spinning in a warning signal. When he says the liberal agenda preys on weakness and feelings of inferiority...goodness why doesn't he address the fact that the conservatives led America into a war because their media hype spun of message of fear? Fear mongering is something they continue to do whenever they want to manipulate something to their advantage. If that doesn't prey on feelings of weakness and victimization...then what does? Then he goes on to say that the LIBERAL agenda is bent on satisfying infantile claims to entitlement...yeah-da...yeah-da...yeah-da and that THEY subordinate the people to the will of the government. My question to him would be...what on earth does wire, tapping, taking the county into billions of dollars of debt...and not being accountable for the cause and effect of this administration's actions? Where do they fit under his clinically nuts banner? Personally I think Dr. Rossiter's bias and cooker cutter approach to analyzing the 'mass consciousness' of any political party without having assessed them as individuals a great way to create controversy and sell his book. He reminds me of another wing nut who markets herself and her outlandish statements (and makes so much money she doesn't have to worry about what people think of her.) The person I am referring to is Anne Colter. She was the one who riled up my feminist side when a few years ago she said that women in American should be denied the vote because the voted the 'wrong' way...for the democrats. One of my professors in my psychology courses said that he found more people with warped perceptions about life in his class...because they were looking for answers to their own problems. He also said that many 'shrinks' are like the blind leading the blind because they get a God complex and never clean up their own emotional baggage. So I am trusting that my "cr@p detector" is spinning rapidly for good reason on this one. Great topic for discussion though. Raia

YAY! It's about time! I've always theoried that liberals were nuts. I'm glad it is now a fact. Only crazy people would think that it is right to kill babies and let murders live.

OK, as a self-respecting liberal I MUST say this - I think the shrink needs a shrink! I doubt this book will effect his practice since he's probably mostly treating rich conservatives. Although maybe he's hoping some liberals will read it and become convinced he's right and they do need help? Annie