Personalities submitting to authority

[occupied]

Lefties tend to judge everything on the basis of emotion rather than reality. Who could forget those glory days when the smell of tear gas was in the air and Bill Ayers was the secret hero to anarchists?
Things haven't changed much. Bill Ayers is a powerful influence in left wing politics and his terrorist wife is a law professor. Lefties still use Alinsky's "rules for radicals" and (sometimes) get away with ignorant claims that it's the right wing's fault.

Scapegoating is a strong Authoritarian trait.

Oh, you mean like scapegoating ATMs, ticket kiosks, corporate jet owners, the 1%, etcetera?

Man, what a Freudian wet dream little saps like you are.

No I mean like blaming poor people entirely for the mortgage crisis., illegals entirely for the loss of jobs or the left entirely for everything that has ever gone wrong.

 

[MikeK]

A personality submitting to authority is one that says to such authority, "Tell ME what to do."

Someone who says to authority, "Tell HIM he can't do that," is not in the same category.

Very true.

The authoritarian personality occurs in two diametrically opposed forms, the authoritarian dominant and the authoritarian submissive. In some extreme examples, both forms manifest in sado/masochistic sexual expression.

In the configurations you've presented the most common example are those personalities who worship police authority (the police persona) and those who do not.

 

[Oddball]

Scapegoating is a strong Authoritarian trait.

Oh, you mean like scapegoating ATMs, ticket kiosks, corporate jet owners, the 1%, etcetera?

Man, what a Freudian wet dream little saps like you are.

No I mean like blaming poor people entirely for the mortgage crisis., illegals entirely for the loss of jobs or the left entirely for everything that has ever gone wrong.

Really flew clean over your head, dinnit?

 

[Oddball]

A personality submitting to authority is one that says to such authority, "Tell ME what to do."

Someone who says to authority, "Tell HIM he can't do that," is not in the same category.

In your particular case it's "Do what I tell you to do and don't question my obvious intellectual and moral superiority".

 

[occupied]

Oh, you mean like scapegoating ATMs, ticket kiosks, corporate jet owners, the 1%, etcetera?

Man, what a Freudian wet dream little saps like you are.

No I mean like blaming poor people entirely for the mortgage crisis., illegals entirely for the loss of jobs or the left entirely for everything that has ever gone wrong.

Really flew clean over your head, dinnit?

No but I am amused at your attempts to paint Obama as an authoritarian, if he was, the authoritarian followers would not hate him nearly as much.

 

[Katzndogz]

"Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority."
-- James A. C. Brown
(1911-1964)

Does this not sum up the Obamaheads as well? I'd say yes it does.

Not at all.

What sums up obamaheads isn't submission to authority but devotion whether or not there is any authority at all. It isn't following authority that moves democrats to mindless drone to obama, but a mindless worship. Democrats know that there's no authority, he hasn't done anything authoritarian. obama is far from a strongman. He's a ditherer. Far from being authoritarian, his hallmark is hesitation. He has never been described as a decisive leader, but a messianic figure of hope. Able to instill devotion with an application of meaningless hope, obama doesn't need to exercise authority. His disciples do that for him. Hope for the thing becomes the thing itself. This is exactly how he won the Nobel prize having done nothing but infuse hope that he MIGHT someday do something to deserve it. Devotion to that hope was enough to get him accolades despite no actions whatsoever.

 

[eflatminor]

The right tends to like having an authority figure running them.

Conservatives, perhaps. Libertarians? No way.

 

[Clementine]

Not at all, the authoritarian follower personality types tend to gravitate to the right end of the spectrum in America.

Gee, that would explain why so many on the right are demanding smaller government, less control over our lives and adhering to the constitution where people are the boss. It's the left that is willing to give up liberties and freedom for our own good, like little children who agree that parents know best, they think government knows best.

It's one thing to endure temporary restrictions for the sake of fighting terrorism, but that's gone too far now. The government asked for power to go after suspected terrorists, but we allowed it and didn't think about how either we all have rights or none of us have rights. People tend to think in terms of taking away criminals rights, not realizing they forfeit their own.

Now the government has the power to intrude on any citizen's privacy, detain them indefinitely and even kill them without a trial and they seem to have found other reasons to exercise it besides terrorism. I think Obama is more politically motivated and has gotten creative by claiming that snooping on children and adults are in the name of fighting terrorism. Of course, he had to redefine terrorism in order to do this. People with Ron Paul bumper stickers should not be considered terrorists, but they are.

It's one thing to make necessary and temporary sacrifices for our safety, but the current rules in place actually enable terrorism while oppressing the innocents. Little old ladies endure more scrutiny from airport security than young Muslim males. Innocent voters who support Ron Paul have more to fear than criminals, like the Black Panthers. We all should fear that the government will know everything about us, including our voting status, income, health record and total access to our money. They have given themselves the right to enter our homes, tell us what we have to purchase (health insurance) and threaten us with fines and jail if we don't do as told. We can be detained indefinitely or killed and all by arbitrary decisions of the government.

And it's all Obama's baby now.

And his followers say that's okay. Who are the benighted and obedient sheeple?

 

[uscitizen]

Scapegoating is a strong Authoritarian trait.

Oh, you mean like scapegoating ATMs, ticket kiosks, corporate jet owners, the 1%, etcetera?

Man, what a Freudian wet dream little saps like you are.

No I mean like blaming poor people entirely for the mortgage crisis., illegals entirely for the loss of jobs or the left entirely for everything that has ever gone wrong.

Yep like blaming the entire economic mess on Obama.

 

[uscitizen]

The right tends to like having an authority figure running them.

Conservatives, perhaps. Libertarians? No way.

True libertarians yes, but embaressed Republicans calling themselves Libertarians? No way!

 

[uscitizen]

I think the Fox ratings vs MSNBC ratings tells the story.

 

[eflatminor]

The right tends to like having an authority figure running them.

Conservatives, perhaps. Libertarians? No way.

True libertarians yes, but embaressed Republicans calling themselves Libertarians? No way!

Fine, agreed.

 

[Dragon]

A personality submitting to authority is one that says to such authority, "Tell ME what to do."

Someone who says to authority, "Tell HIM he can't do that," is not in the same category.

In your particular case it's "Do what I tell you to do and don't question my obvious intellectual and moral superiority".

LOL well, yes. Of course. Although that's only a side-note, really. The point is that someone is not exhibiting submissiveness to authority when he calls upon authority to discipline the other guy, only when he calls on it to discipline himself.

 

[Old Rocks]

"Communism and fascism or nazism, although poles apart in their intellectual content, are similar in this, that both have emotional appeal to the type of personality that takes pleasure in being submerged in a mass movement and submitting to superior authority."
-- James A. C. Brown
(1911-1964)

Does this not sum up the Obamaheads as well? I'd say yes it does.

No it does not. It defines alll the people that sucked up to Bush. And all of you 'Conservatives' that have to have a mean God and meaner attitude toward your fellow humans in order to respect your shortcomings.

 

[WatertheTree]

Not at all, the authoritarian follower personality types tend to gravitate to the right end of the spectrum in America.

Both ends of the political spectrum are authoritarian. Are you so dense you think that communism or socialism is anything but 100% government regulation of your life?

Fascism, which is far to the right, is no different although it begins as collusion of government and business. Crony capitalism. We are on that path now. Fascism turns into authoritarianism in a fascist state to maintain control of the population. Imagine that, a government that steals the prosperity of a nation and gives it to few select crony's need a police state to maintain control of a resentful population.

Who would have guessed.

 

[occupied]

Not at all, the authoritarian follower personality types tend to gravitate to the right end of the spectrum in America.

Both ends of the political spectrum are authoritarian. Are you so dense you think that communism or socialism is anything but 100% government regulation of your life?

Fascism, which is far to the right, is no different although it begins as collusion of government and business. Crony capitalism. We are on that path now. Fascism turns into authoritarianism in a fascist state to maintain control of the population. Imagine that, a government that steals the prosperity of a nation and gives it to few select crony's need a police state to maintain control of a resentful population.

Who would have guessed.

In America there are few authoritarians among the actual left. Overall Authoritarians may be most easily spotted by the importance they put on symbolic patriotism (flag, pledge, American exceptionalism, tricorn hats, etc).

 

[JakeStarkey]

Not at all, the authoritarian follower personality types tend to gravitate to the right end of the spectrum in America.

While I disagree with your point, you've made me reassess mine. Allow me to restate: Does that quote not sum up ALL big government supporters whether they lean left or right? I think the answer is obvious.

All progressives, right or left leaning, that require political means for government, economic, political, and social reform are statists. Pro-lifers who want a national or state constitutional amendment concerning abortion or marriage are statists.