Category Archives: Psychology & Pop-Psychology

UPDATE III: Closing The Door On Closed, Cloistered American Media

America, Intellectualism, Journalism, libertarianism, Media, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Reason, Russia

For news coverage, I’ve now converted almost exclusively to RT (on whose website my Paleolibertarian Column features). I recommend that thinking readers do the same. A few days with RT and you will begin to understand just how impoverished American media are (and how valid this writer’s media critique has been over the years); the degree to which broadcasters and journalists have degraded journalism and contributed immeasurably to the deep stupidity, gargantuan arrogance, and short attention spans of their viewers.

Americans are “a silly people in serious times” (Pat Buchanan’s words). Reason, intellectual honesty and curiosity, and standards of decency have been expunged from the national dialogue.

There isn’t a news story that isn’t biased, contaminated with every conceivable error in thinking, from pop psychology, to addiction and self-esteem fallacies, to obsessive, interminable negrophilia.

If you can no longer stomach the bombast in American broadcast media, the vanity panels, the egos in the anchor’s chair who’ve tailored debate and chosen interlocutors to fit their own limitations; if you’ve had it with Anderson Cooper-type journo-activism, the ubiquitous dog and cat stories, the constant stream of feel-good, feminized, soft news vignettes that festoon news and commentary; if you can stand not a moment more of the America über alles, navel-gazing, chauvinistic, delusions of grandeur and of empire promulgated by the self-important American media—I recommend RT.

Yes, there is leftist, even statist, programing at RT, but it doesn’t permeate every news segment like at CNN, where today, White House correspondent Jessica Yelling delivered a how-to for Obama on countering bad press about alternative energy. On RT you’ll find interesting segments complied by critical thinkers who pursue the kind of unorthodox angles I’ve pursued in my columns over the years, but which are absent from the American channels. “Exporting Revolution,” for example, with BAB A List writer Nebojsa Malic. (Related topic: “LaHood Is Still In The Egyptian Hood”)

This morning, as the Idiocracy at MSNBC, FoxNews and CNN counted down to the endorsement of Mitt Romney by the unthinking, crass, and Synophobic Donald Trump, RT’s Capital Account was tracking Ben Bernanke’s defense of “the Federal Reserve’s financial repression of savers on Capitol Hill.” Their words. Jim Rogers was on fire.

Sadly, I no longer watch the loud bluster on Freedom Watch, unless Lew Rockwell, always calms and Rothbardian, graces the show. The volume level, the Paul worship (such aggressive allegiance to any politician creeps me out), and the dueling perspectives political panels (featuring horrible, boring truth deniers like Nancy Skinner, Caroline Heldman, Tara Dowdell, Carl Jeffers, Joe Sibila, Erika Payne) are pure torture.

Besides, when an anchor introduces his regulars (and boy are they day-in, and day-out fixtures) as “my good friend (Kirstin Powers),” or as “friend of the show,” it smacks of buddy-buddy influence peddling, not of an honest pursuit of ideas. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate the work done on Freedom Watch to popularize constitutional principles among the masses, but it has become more like the other cable personality centered ego-driven shoutfests. And, of course, the regular robots from Reason Magazine, representing “Libertarianism Lite,” are tiresome.

Off to catch up on world events …

UPDATE I: Need I say more? Right now, as mainstream American media pretend jobs have materialized out of thin air, you can hear Jeffrey Tucker on RT’s Capital Account, talking about ending the Fed.

UPDATE II: Ann Coulter to Mitt Romeny at a fundraiser, “You owe me and you better be as right-wing a president as I’m telling everybody you’re going to be.’” Schmooze.

But another example of the narrow coterie that makes up the American media elite. Mind you, if the Judge welcomed “My buddy Ann Coulter, good friend of the show,” we’d at least have a few laughs. She’s always sharp and adds information, unlike the banal, boring, never-said-an-original-thing-in-their-lives Colmes and Powers.

UPDATE III: (Feb. 4): Do not distort my words, John D (in Comments). The style issue is minor. In your adulation, you’ve chosen here to do me a disservice by ignoring the repeated substantive comments made over these pixelated pages about the bent of “Freedom Watch.” In particular: 1) The sinecured Left-libertarian bores who’ve take up residence on the show, covered in “Libertarianism Lite.” Reason does not represent American libertarianism (Old Right), nor does it resonate with most Americans. American libertarianism is rightist.

2) As in all the cloistered and closed American programing—and contrary to RT’s which really welcomes many voices, and not only those of pundits and presstitutes who huddle close to Power—the habit on Freedom Watch is to shut out and expunge from the debate the unkosher faction, which is also, again, the libertarianism that most resonates with the American Right at large: paleolibertarianism.

3) In “Fox News And Its Truth Deniers,” I offered a substantive argument against the positively postmodernist “dueling perspectives political panel” perfected on the show. You, John, chose to ignore my case against the “parallel universe” created and paraded as truth, represented by the odious regulars listed: Nancy Skinner, Caroline Heldman, Tara Dowdell, Carl Jeffers, Joe Sibila, Erika Payne, Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, Kirstin Powers, etc. “The above Fox News fixtures,” I argued, “no more represent truth or promote it than does your average Holocaust denier.”

“By presenting the public with two competing perspectives—you mislead viewers into believing that indeed there are two realities, and that it is up to them to decide which one is more compelling.” This Freedom Watch achieves handily.

Alas, in your blind adulation, John, you have chosen to cast substantive critique as a complaint about style (the latter—the delivery—being bloody horrible). What a shame.

CONTINUED IN THE POST, “More Reasons to Secede from the Pundit Pantheons of CNN, Fox and MSNBC.”

UPDATED: Drug Pusher & Purchaser Innocent In Libertarian Law (On Selecting for Low Character)

Celebrity, Free Will Vs. Determinism, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, libertarianism, Liberty, Psychiatry, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, War on Drugs

The trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, “the doctor charged in Michael Jackson’s death,” drags on. “Authorities contend Murray gave Jackson a fatal dose of the anesthetic propofol in the singer’s bedroom on June 25, 2009. Defense attorneys claim the singer gave himself the fatal dose.” (WAPo)

Murray agreed to become Jackson’s personal physician for $150,000 a month but was never paid because the singer died before the contract was signed.

Jackson, whom I defended when ‘Mad Dog’ [Thomas] Sneddon picked up the star’s scent and gave chase, was a deeply disturbed, body dysmorphic, drug-addicted man. But he was an adult, not a child. His decisions were his to make. He hired Murray to feed narcotics directly into his bloodstream.

If not for the medicine of this admittedly shoddy practitioner, Jackson would have ended-up dead, in a back alley with a needle in his stick arm, a long time ago.

In the libertarian law, Dr. Conrad Murray is innocent (if odious).

A drug purchaser and a drug pusher have agreed on an exchange. If it is voluntary and consensual, then both parties expect to benefit ex ante. A voluntary exchange is, by definition, always mutually beneficial inasmuch as, at the time of the exchange, the buyer valued the purchase more than the money he paid for it, and the seller valued the money more than the goods he sold.

There will always be meddling third parties seeking to circumscribe and circumvent a voluntary activity not to their liking. Some feminists want to stop lovers of pornography from making or consuming it. Other busybodies would like to stop adults from gambling. These third parties have no place in a transaction between consenting adults, unless these transactions infringe directly—not foreseeably—on their property or person.

Any transaction that was at the time of occurrence voluntary, and hence beneficial to the participants, can, retrospectively, be denounced as harmful and regrettable.

The legislator has no place in a voluntary exchange between adults, as dodgy and as dangerous as they may be (like dwarf tossing). Murray might be an unsavory character. He would not be my choice for a medic, but he does not belong in jail.

UPDATED (Oct. 27): ON SELECTING FOR LOW CHARACTER. Some interesting comments have been made below, under Comments. First, not to be schoolmarmish, but addiction is not a disease. Please click “Drug War,” on my Articles Archive, and read some of these titles. The category of “Psychiatry and The Therapeutic State” is also relevant to grasping that the disease model of misbehavior has no place in a free society:

Charlie Sheen’s Out of the AA ‘Troll Hole’
VICES ARE NOT CRIMES
HARRY’S HOUNDERS AND OTHER VILLAGE IDIOTS
Addicted To The Drug War
Tokers Are Terrorists Now
Medical Mumbo Jumbo Does Not Explain Addiction
Addictions Are About Behavior, Not Disease

As to the good points raised in Comments. We live in the real world which is encumbered by positive law. Analysis must avoid, in as much as possible, levitating between what “is” and what “ought to be” (although all libertarian analysis, given its deference to natural law, will so err).

The type of “service” Jackson required from this Murray man was one that few competent, above-board practitioners would agree to perform. I’ve used a similar argument to make the case that our immigration law selects for low character: yes, left-libertarians like to believe that the best and bravest of humanity will cross our borders illegally. As an immigrant who knows a bit about the US visa system, I assure you that this is seldom the case. (Read more.)

It appears that poor Jackson did not have the fiduciary and intellectual wherewithal to sign a contract specifying Murray’s responsibilities. But even had Jackson done that prudent thing, Murray would have likely flouted his obligations, irrespective of the Hippocratic oath he took. See comment above. Risk is implicit in buying a dodgy service such as anesthetizing yourself to sleep every night. However much I paid my doctor, I know she would refuse. She’s a go-by-the-book woman.

What is true is that if all drug dealing were licit, Jackson would have had access to a better practitioner. However, private medical associations would have probably not licensed Murray and would refuse to give their medical imprimatur to individuals who were prepared to anesthetized a man to sleep each and every night (give him his “milk,” as the warped Jackson called this deadly, almost necrophilic practice).

Either way, your best and brightest medics would not be willing to cease practicing in their area of specialty, and contend themselves, as professionals, with the nightly routine of hooking up a celebrity’s IV.

Here’s another clue Jackson ought to have used in assessing the risks of hiring Murray: the man is a cardiologist, for heaven’s sake, not an anesthesiologist. The latter is a specialty in itself.

UPDATE I: Commute The Troy Davis Death Sentence

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Courts

If it hasn’t yet, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, reconsidering the death sentence of Troy Davis, ought to consult Dr. Elizabeth F. Loftus. According to Dr. Loftus’ seminal work, eye-witness testimony is terribly unreliable.

A man should not be put to death based solely on the testimony of eye-witnesses most of whom have since recanted.

Troy Anthony Davis (born October 9, 1968) was convicted of the August 19, 1989, murder of Savannah, Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail. MacPhail was working as a security guard at a restaurant when he intervened in an argument between several men in a nearby parking lot. He was shot in the heart and face without having drawn his gun. One of the men, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, went to police and implicated Davis in the killing, and Davis was arrested four days later. During Davis’ 1991 trial, many witnesses testified they had seen Davis shoot MacPhail. Two others testified that Davis had confessed the murder to them. The murder weapon was never found, and no physical evidence linked Davis to the crime. Throughout his trial and subsequent appeals, Davis has maintained his innocence. Davis was convicted and sentenced to death in August 1991.

(I discovered the work of this leading world authority on memory in the late 1990s, when I was writing and raging about the the recovered memory ruse. I also heard Dr. Loftus testify in court thereby securing a man’s liberty. As is obvious from the prominence of characters like Drs. Phil and Drew Pinsky, the profession of psychology is festooned with popularizers, poor thinkers and plain charlatans. Elizabeth F. Loftus has always stood apart.)

On the other hand, Joshua Komisarjevsky needs killing.

He and his accomplice, Steven Hayes (already waiting to die), were arrested at the scene of the crime—the Petit family home in Cheshire, Connecticut. He and Hayes had just killed all three—and raped two—of the women of the Petit family. They then proceeded to burn down the house.

UPDATE I (Sept. 20): “Breaking News vial Amnesty International: The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency to Troy Davis on Tuesday. This means that very little is standing in the way of the state executing a potentially innocent man this Wednesday.” Amnesty International is “calling on the Board to reconsider its decision, and on the Chatham County (Savannah) District Attorney Larry Chisolm to do the right thing.”

Toy Makers Play Sexy Games With Toddlers

Family, Feminism, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Sex

Breast feeding is a perfectly wholesome choice but so is privacy paramount. As is age- and gender appropriate behavior. At least in a healthy society, which our post-modern culture is certainly not.

“After a successful run overseas, reports RT, “Spain-based Berjuan Toys is bringing their Breast Milk Baby to the United States. The realistic play-thing aimed at kids two and up is trying to teach the youth of America that breast-feeding is a healthy, natural way to feed a baby — and this is something that can be taught with a $90 piece of plastic complete with a realistic suckling mechanism.”

I don’t mean to be a prude, but I’m glad my daughter was raised at a time, not so long ago, when “My Little Pony” was prized above all toys—lots of My Little Ponies and paraphernalia. How innocent and sweet such play-things now seem.

I don’t want your two-year-old tot playing with mine if yours is a precocious, sexualized brat who shows mine how to append a suckling doll to her tiny chest and encourages little brother to join in the breast-feeding “fun.”

Children learn socially appropriate behavior through role models and modeling. Having breast fed my daughter until she rejected me (at 10 months), I did so in private and was modest about it. No one feels comfortable around a woman who insists that her mammary glands are not sexual object too, and foists them on bashful company (now boys, behave yourselves).

And who wants a two-year-old brat to sound like a breastfeeding advocate during playtime? Propagandized American kids are painful enough as it is.

The feminization of little boys is as serious as the sexualization of little girts. Oh for boyhood before BB guns and “bang-bang you’re dead” were banned; and for family life prior to “One Dad Two Dads Brown Dad Blue Dads.”

Then there is the importance of boundaries—between the private and the public, between adults and children, between experience and inexperience (the last should respect the first). Uncouth, uncivilized societies such as ours is becoming are typically without boundaries.

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