Galloway attacks Frum as 'Zionist funded crazy' on BBC newsnight -

[Rich]

You have to hand it to Galloway for saying it as it is. Despite the common 'straw man argument' practice from Frum of: personal attack and ridicule, evading the questions and spewing out his propaganda like a teflon covered weasel.

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR0ZYIQLsZ0

 

[Cyre2067]

Heh I love Galloway, he's so straight up, in your face, and armed with facts that it brings a lil spark of joy to my heart. His accent also rocks. He's like a Scottish Joe Quinn with airtime.

Did anyone else notice how the opposition dude has his eyebrows raised toward the middle of his forehead, nearly the entire time? I can't recall which specific emotion is associated with it. Thou he does seem very teflon-coated weasel now that i think about it. I also got the vibe there was a lot of equivocation going on. Also, it seemed more like Galloway had his say, the other guy had his, but there was no 'conversation' per se, more like a expressing of views as opposed to an interaction.

 

[Azur]

I heard Frum on a CBC interview (not knowing who was on) and I kept knashing my teeth, thinking: "Who is this imbecile? He is either way out to lunch, or he thinks EVERYBODY is completely stupid."

Jon Stewart wasn't taking it either:

_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_VC4uPFWAA

 

[PepperFritz]

Frum is an embarrassment to the land of his birth (Canada). Thank God he's adopted the U.S. as his "true home", and didn't hang around here to pollute Canadian politics and public discourse. [PepperFritz shudders at the thought]

 

[Niall]

While it's satisfying to hear Galloway stick it to the "crazees", I can't help but wonder how much smarter he could be if he incorporated ponerology?

Interesting seeing the contrast in approach of Stewart's interview with Frum. Stewart massages Frum's ego, subtley showing Frum up for the fool that he is - Frum shooting a nervous glance at his host as if to say, "what are you DOING!?" - then Stewart ropes him back in with a tack in conversation, "so, in your book, you say..."

Stewart seemed to be encouraging Frum talk his paralogical nonsense; alowing his audience to see and pass judgement for themselves. I got the impression that Frum actually believes in what he is saying. Say that were the case: it would do no use insulting him as "crazy" to his face. He might only back into a corner and dream up some even grosser scheme for dealing with "those other people."

 

[Redrock12]

Your impression is probably right starsailor. Frum does believe what he is saying because, like all true psychopaths, whatever he says is the truth, because saying it makes it so.
I've watched him ever since he arrived on the Canadian conservative scene back, I think, in the lates eighties. In layman's terms, he's just a suckup, kissing up to the likes of Conrad Black, Brian Mulroney, Richard Perle, Bush, and the conservative Christian lobby both in Canada and the US.
As well, he's smart enough to realize the death and destruction that would be brought on the Palestinian and Iraqi peoples by the policies he helped to promote, yet he didn't blink an eye. Yep, a dyed-in-the-wool psychopath. What a breath of fresh air to see George Galloway and Jon Stewart give him his comeuppance.

 

[Azur]

Frum does believe what he is saying because, like all true psychopaths, whatever he says is the truth, because saying it makes it so.

That's the thing, though. As much as he is repugnant to me, I don't get the sense that he believes what he is saying, but has taken a tack of peddling "something that could fly" more for his personal "making way" within the limits of an environment that he sees could support it.

Is he a psychopath? He certainly exhibits the traits of one: either because he is one or he has adopted an extreme self-preservation behavior (rationalized minimum "survival" requirements), but the results are the same: the repercussions of his actions, or propagation (and adoption) of his ideas are not his concern. That someone would adopt his ideas is the currency of his concern, not what the idea actually is, or the repercussion of their adoption.

I don't even think he has an agenda beyond providing for himself. Everything else is not even on the radar.

 

[Cyre2067]

Oh wow, thanks for that Daily Show clip, it cracked me up when Frum was commenting on Ron Paul and Stewart shot it right back down his throat... "I'm joking... I'm joking..." lol - not. I also liked the joke at the end with the simpsons reference, sooooo funny. Gotta give props to Jon Stewart, for all his pandering to the machine he certainly does throw a ray of light out every so often.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

If Frum is an essential psychopath he is an excellent one. I personally don't think he is one, (perhaps a schizoid or other type of psychopath) but on the chance that he is, the stammering is a nice touch. I think Perle on the other hand I think is an essential psychopath.

 

[Redrock12]

Maybe I'm not clear on the difference between an essential psychopath and a schizoidal psychopath. But imo, if someone intentionally promotes mass murder, then that seems to speak of someone without an ability to empathize, ie without a conscience: an essential psychopath. I see no difference between Richard Perle and David Frum. Throughout his public career, Frum has consistently sided with and propogated the elite Zionist agenda.

 

[Niall]

But imo, if someone intentionally promotes mass murder, then that seems to speak of someone without an ability to empathize

This is the thing though; while an "inability to empathise" may be deduced from the outward behaviour of both an essential psychopath and a schizoidal psychopath, only the former would knowingly intend mass murder, while the latter (Frum?) may actually believe that his proscriptions for the world can produce a desirable outcome for all. So, inwardly, Perle is aware that he lies to deceive, while Frum, should he a schizoidal psychopath, lies to himself to such an extreme degree that he believes his own lies and then is genuinely exasperated when others don't see what he sees.

But yeh, they're both malignant manipulative mass murderers. It's important to learn about the different types though. Up close and personal, one needs to be able to discern the specifics of the dynamic one is dealing with. Different types require different strategies for protecting self and others.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

Only a minority of murderers are psychopaths. Let that sink in. All psychopaths lack conscience, BUT not all people without conscience are psychopaths. Conscience is a fickle and underdeveloped phenomenon in the vast majority of humans. For example, say a someone murders your child. Chances are you will react moralistically and want the killer to die. This is a species-wide response to pathological behavior: eliminate its source from the gene pool. In other words, your conscience will make an exception for the murderer, because he "deserves" to die. If you are cleverly manipulated, you may even be convinced someone else did it, and your anger and vengefulness will be directed to an innocent party. Maybe if the murderer was a Jew you will put all Jews into an "evil" category. There are many ways that our conscience is inhibited and influenced to "make exceptions". This is also how mass opinion is manipulated by psychopaths to gain power: convince people they're being attacked so that the people will want the "attackers" to be killed. Again, the vast majority of humanity falls into this category. The extreme examples are the psychopaths and characteropaths.

In fact, chances are that if you hear a violent, moralistic opinion, that it will NOT be made by a psychopath (unless he's just saying it to manipulate others to feel the same way, but this is usually done by spellbinders or characteropaths, not psychopaths). Psychopaths lack moralistic emotions and are cold and calculating about their dysfunction. I'd suggest you read Without Conscience by Robert Hare. I've got a summary of what I think are the book's most important points here: http://ponerology.com/psychopaths_3.html#link2

In short, psychopathy is a very specific TYPE of conscienceless person. They are, as a rule, talkative and glib, cold and callous, ruthless and machiavellian. If you have a copy of ponerology handy, I'd reread the sections on "moralizing"(within the section entitled "The Human Individual") because it seems to me that your thinking on the subject is clouded by your moral feelings.

Back to Frum. If he is a psychopath, he is VERY good, because he gives the appearance of being neurotic, emotional, and somewhat odd (all traits of a schizoid). Compare that to Perle who is charming, soft-spoken, and "grandfatherly". The latter is a more typical psychopathic mask than Frum's.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

But imo, if someone intentionally promotes mass murder, then that seems to speak of someone without an ability to empathize

This is the thing though; while an "inability to empathise" may be deduced from the outward behaviour of both an essential psychopath and a schizoidal psychopath, only the former would knowingly intend mass murder, while the latter (Frum?) may actually believe his proscriptions for the world can produce a desirable outcome for all. So, inwardly, Perle is aware that he lies to deceive, while Frum, should he a schizoidal psychopath, lies to himself to such an extreme degree that he believes his own lies. Perle wouldn't need to do this - he knows the real score, so to speak.

I don't necessarily agree. A schizoid could very well knowingly intend mass murder. They would do so because they know that "humanity is evil and needs a strong power to keep it in line". Thus it may be a good thing to a schizoid to murder enemies, because it is for the "good" of an inherently evil humanity. Notice that the intentions are good, but not the behaviour.

A psychopath just doesn't need a rationalization. "We need to kill a million people? Okay, let's do it."

 

[Joe]

Only a minority of murderers are psychopaths. Let that sink in. All psychopaths lack conscience, BUT not all people without conscience are psychopaths. Conscience is a fickle and underdeveloped phenomenon in the vast majority of humans. For example, say someone murders your child. Chances are you will react moralistically and want the killer to die. This is a species-wide response to pathological behavior: eliminate its source from the gene pool. In other words, your conscience will make an exception for the murderer, because he "deserves" to die. If you are cleverly manipulated, you may even be convinced someone else did it, and your anger and vengefulness will be directed to an innocent party. Maybe if the murderer was a Jew you will put all Jews into an "evil" category. There are many ways that our conscience is inhibited and influenced to "make exceptions". This is also how mass opinion is manipulated by psychopaths to gain power: convince people they're being attacked so that the people will want the "attackers" to be killed. Again, the vast majority of humanity falls into this category. The extreme examples are the psychopaths and characteropaths.

There is of course a difference between temporary lapses in conscience and no conscience whatsoever. Maybe a clarification would be that normal people can be deceived, or deceive themselves into experiencing a temporary lack of conscience or lack of conscience towards a specific person or group, but psychopaths lack conscience by nature. Others, such as characteropaths or spellbinders or schizoids are akin to normal people who are in a permanent, and likely irreversible state of self-deception, and in that way akin to essential psychopaths.

Joe

 

[Approaching Infinity]

There is of course a difference between temporary lapses in conscience and no conscience whatsoever. Maybe a clarification would be that normal people can be deceived, or deceive themselves into experiencing a temporary lack of conscience or lack of conscience towards a specific person or group, but psychopaths lack conscience by nature. Others, such as characteropaths or spellbinders or schizoids are akin to normal people who are in a permanent, and likely irreversible state of self-deception, and in that way akin to essential psychopaths.

Well put. I would only disagree with the use of "temporary". A normal person can have a lack of conscience towards, say, blacks, for their entire life and yet feel some degree of conscience for their family. At lower levels, conscience is selective, reactive, ambivalent, fickle. It works in some situations but not others, probably as a result of social influences.

From Dabrowski: "We see also a transition from impulsive, reflexive syntony as a function of temperament and mood of the moment, to reflective syntony, that is, empathy."

(Level I: primary integration, 65-75% of the population)
Temperamental syntony: Superficial, easy, and immediately expressed feeling of commonality with others. Group feelings of doing things together, such as athletics, dances, drinking, brawls, or union strikes and wars. Temperamental syntony is governed by the mood of the moment and absence of conflict of interest. When such conflict appears feelings of kinship are replaced by aggression.

(Level II: unilevel disintegration)
Ambivalences. Changeable or simultaneous feelings of like and dislike, approach and avoidance, inferiority and superiority, love and hatred. Fluctuations of mood, alternations of excitation and inhibition.

Temperamental syntony. Fluctuation of syntonic and asyntonic moods (mood cyclicity) with easy transition from mood of companionship to withdrawal. Sensitivity combined with irritability -- a person is offended easily, is touchy. Enthusiasm and feelings of friendship may arise very quickly and may equally quickly vanish as a result of minor disappointments. In particularly emotional persons there are tendencies toward excessive (uncontrollable) reactions whether positive or negative. External conditions and influences dominate in the fluctuations of syntony.

(Level III: spontaneous multilevel disintegration)
Empathy. Syntony is transformed into empathy through growing identification with higher levels in oneself. Syntonic feelings toward others are based on reflection, self-evaluation, clear hierarchization of values, and growing readiness to bring help to others. Growing understanding of others is based on genuine acceptance of others as unique persons. There is an ability to differentiate subjective individualities. But there is also a distinct dissyntony with lower levels in oneself and in others. Nevertheless, lower emotional attitudes, though negated, are not condemned. One still observes some imbalance between an understanding acceptance and negation, there can still be present a certain emotional impatience.

In consequence of internal conflicts, increasing hierarchization and the transposition of the disposing and directing center to a higher level, grows an increasingly more conscious and reflective empathy toward oneself and toward others. This is manifested in reduced irritability but augmented sensitivity and responsiveness to the difficulties and efforts seen in others. A previously unilevel attitude of like and dislike is transformed into an understanding of others with considerable emotional investment, even a sense of closeness to other persons besides one’s intimate friends and loved ones. Impulsive and chance relationships disappear. In mature persons, although strongly emotional, tendency to falling in love and falling out of love disappears and yields instead to an attitude of appreciative distance which does not, however, reduce the depth and permanence of feeling.

So a normal person can have a permanent but partial block in their conscience. In other words their conscience is very compatmentalized. It easily dissociates from one mood to another, purely as a reaction to "conflicts of interest" in the external world.