Narcissistic Personality Disorder

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” These words from the Declaration of Independence are among the most famous and inspirational in the history of ideas.

Note that these rights do not include the Right to Happiness. The Founding Fathers were intelligent enough to know that it was beyond their power, and also believed that it is not the business of government to guarantee outcomes. Government was committed to do nothing to stand in the way of the pursuit of happiness (income taxes notwithstanding) but was not about to make happiness a right.

Oh, how things have changed! Today, there are folks who think that the government needs to guarantee the right to health care, the right to housing and the right to income equality. I know that I’m a little bummed that I make less than Kobe Bryant and Barbara Boxer, but then I can’t out-jump Kobe, or out-think Barb… Scratch that! I have no idea why she’s not impoverished.

Our friend Dennis Prager has been talking about “Compassion and the Decline of America.” He tells about the 13-year-old son of his friend and the baseball game where the score was changed. His son's team was winning 24-7 as the game entered the last inning, but the scoreboard read 0-0. In order to ensure that the boys losing by a lopsided score would not feel too bad, the score was changed.

Throughout liberal America, compassion is trumping all other values: truth, fairness, wisdom and building character. One pities the boys on the losing team, but not for the typical PC reasons. “They learned that they do not have to deal with disappointment in life. Instead, someone in authority will take care of them. They learned that their feelings, not objective standards, are what society deems most important.”

This reliance on the state for personal problems -- health care, housing and income equality, winning and losing -- the worldview of the Left -- is formed early in life.
Prager notes that compassion is a morally and socially destructive guideline when making public policy.

Mike Medved, another good friend, notes that the “Essence of Liberalism” is embracing life's losers. The left sees society divided between the privileged and the powerless, the favored and the unfortunate, victors and victims.

“While the right wants to reward beneficial choices and discourage destructive directions, the left seeks to eliminate or reduce the impact of the disadvantages that result from bad decisions. In place of the conservative emphasis on accountability, the left proffers a gospel of indiscriminate compassion.”

Actually, indiscriminate is not quite right. “Enlightened lefties long to embrace and exalt the homeless, single mothers, people of color, homosexuals, feminists, convicted criminals, atheists, immigrants and many more – even Islamo-Nazi terrorists. America is simply too prosperous and too powerful to win liberal sympathy.”

In his book The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness," Lyle H. Rossiter, M.D., describes the liberal psyche.

“In his determination to control the world, the liberal constantly defends himself against the most basic of human fears: being alone and helpless in a dangerous, indifferent world, the nightmare of the abandoned, terrified child. Persons plagued with such fears easily conclude that it is in their greatest interest to dominate others, and to set about achieving that goal through the manipulation of government power.”

This leads to the “liberal principle of coercive collectivism in which the citizen's choices will be influenced by ideals of entitlement, welfare dependency, state regulation and moral relativism.” The liberal, Rossiter adds, is “not called to maturity but is instead invited to begin a second childhood. Like the child at play, he is given, or at least promised, ultimate economic, social and political security without having to assume responsibility for himself.”

In an insightful column called “The Pathology of Liberalism,” Joan Swirsky explains that “at the core of liberal thinking is the same kind of pathology that characterizes other mental disorders, i.e., a glitch in the brain that produces feelings and behavior over which liberals have no control.”

“Liberals, like children, live in a world of utopian dreaminess, believing that if everyone would just be nice to each other - let's talk, let's chat - all the noisy death threats and pesky suicide bombings would go away, and all those grumpy grownups in the current administration would see the light.”

“And when thwarted they do what children do when they're mad. They call names. Who but a snobby and vacuous little brat would badmouth the president on foreign soil while our troops were in harm's way as liberal Senator John Kerry did, as did liberal former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.”

Much worse, they've aligned themselves with America's mortal enemies. According to Vasko Kohlmayer in World Defense Review, “the affection in which liberals are held by our foes is neither unjustified nor surprising. They have more than earned it by systematically subverting this country's war effort while simultaneously proffering assistance to those who have pledged to destroy us.”

It is a long suffered illness. “Almost all of the current Dem leadership was actively involved in the Vietnam protest effort. Bill and Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi were all personally engaged in the anti-war movement. And when at last it bore its disastrous fruit, they gloated and danced in the streets. Exhilarated and jubilant, they deemed America's disgrace their finest hour. In their skewed world, America's defeat came to represent their personal triumph.”

Joan Swirsky advises, the next time you're listening to a liberal, observe the symptoms: the anger, pessimism, negativity, name-calling, gratuitous insults, the desire to present an image of goodness, the transparent attempt to be liked, and the eagerness to placate our enemies, the better to avoid a fight so that those enemies will like us.

“Ask yourself: Do I want a child to be the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief in a time of war?”

I ask myself, Do I want liberals making any decisions that determine the direction of our country? NOPE!