Remember the Psychology Today article on the Ideological Animal? Well, Cinnamon Stillwell tells us that Psy Today published my friend Asher Abrams‘s open letter (emphasis added)
I’m curious, though, to know what it is exactly that your article is trying to establish. Because it looks as if you’re trying very hard to find psychological, i.e. non-rational, explanations for cases where people adopt “conservative” political beliefs. There’s no acknowledgment that such a political shift could come about as the result of a rational assessment of the relevant facts and arguments; nor, conversely, is there any discussion of fear-related psychology on the political left (dire warnings about global warming and the ever-impending American police state spring to mind). And instead of encouraging people to inform themselves on political issues while listening with an open mind to different points of view, your article prescribes the simple expedient of “reminding ourselves to think rationally”, as if the fear itself, rather than its objective cause, were the real problem.
In fact, in an entire article devoted to what you call the “9/11 effect”, there is not a single direct reference to the terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans.
In this light, it’s difficult for me to escape the conclusion that your article is ideologically driven. The agenda seems to be to encourage readers to dismiss precisely those fears which, in your analysis, lead to conservative politics. In short, you want to “cure” people of being conservative.
While Sandy Berger walks free, two two former AIPAC officials are prosecuted for receiving classified information under the Espionage Act: First They Came for the Jews
A prosecution under the Espionage Act threatens the First Amendment.
What chance the defendants–who asked no one for classified information–have of acquittal and the avoidance of prison remains to be seen. Though Judge T. S. Ellis rejected defense motions to dismiss the charges on constitutional grounds, his early rulings have so far shown a keen appreciation of the meaning this case. In this he stands in sharp contrast to the nation’s leading civil rights guardians, these days busy filing lawsuits against the government and fulminating on behalf of the rights of captured terrorists in Guantanamo and elsewhere, while accusing the U.S. of failing to provide open trials and assurances that the accused have the right to view the evidence against them. As of this day neither the ACLU nor the Center for Constitutional Rights has shown the smallest interest in this prosecution so bound up with First Amendment implications. Nor has most of the media, whose daily work includes receiving “leaks” from government officials far more damaging to national security than anything alleged in this case. In this as in the Scooter Libby matter, the desire to see Bush Administration officials nailed apparently counts for more than First Amendment principle.
Powerline has more.
Little Miss Attila posts on Fred Thompson – Robert Novak has more.
When the money runs out. Not that the Dems give a damn. (h/t Larwyn)
Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs
Forty-eight percent of Germans think the United States is more dangerous than Iran, a new survey shows, with only 31 percent believing the opposite. Germans’ fundamental hypocrisy about the US suggests that it’s high time for a new bout of re-education.
(h/t Irwin)