Psychometrics

Florida woman, 87, arrested
for selling cocaine to
undercover policeman.

Well, I’m back. I can report with some pride that although I was literally surrounded by television sets for the past few days my resolve did not fail, I did not watch any news, nor did I engage the web. It was enormously refreshing. This failure to keep up with the news was not a result of my iron-like discipline but, rather, a result of my utter contempt for the MSM and the political ads. It is impossible to determine which of these venues is the most dishonest. When I did, finally, turn on the news yesterday afternoon I found it was basically the same as it was when I left, nonsensical, dishonest, unworthy of any attention.

Tomorrow will be the big, important election we have all been looking forward to having. From my perspective it is going to be an exercise in psychometrics as well as merely a mid-term election. That is, first of all, I think it will be a test of memory. Does the American electorate have any memory of the eight years of the Bush/Cheney disaster? Do the voters remember that it was the Republican administration that produced the horrible mess we now find ourselves in? Or will they, having forgotten, actually return the same people that brought about the disaster to power to do more of the same?

It is also, I think, a test of perception. That is, what is the current electorate’s perception of the Republican Party. Do they see it as the party of “no” that it has consistently been? Is there any way it could be perceived in any other way? Have they actually accomplished anything at all by their obsessive resistance to any and everything Obama has attempted to do. Does anyone perceive the complete hypocrisy of a party that announced from the beginning they wanted Obama to fail, would be the party of no, has kept that promise religiously and blocked him at every turn, and now has the gall to criticize Obama for not doing enough?

It is also going to be a test of motivation. That is, are Democrats sufficiently motivated to actually turn out to vote? Or are they merely going to stand by and watch Republicans once again lie and cheat their way to victory? There is little doubt that if Democrats vote in large numbers they will win. Are they so disenchanted they can’t be bothered to keep the impending disaster from occurring? Tomorrow will tell.

This mid-term election is also, in my opinion, going to be a kind of intelligence test. Are Democrats stupid enough to allow completely unqualified candidates to win over established political figures with long track records of performance? It seems that in the most extreme case, that of Christine O’Donnell, a candidate with no experience, no track record, no record of every doing anything other than running for offices she is unqualified for and failing, voters have pretty clearly (and mercifully) decided she will not win. But what about the strange case of Sharron Angle? Here is another woman with virtually no record of accomplishment, very little experience, seemingly ignorant of how campaigns and interviews work, challenging a senior and seasoned political veteran who is also the leader of the Senate, who has done a great deal for his state, and apparently running neck and neck with him. And this is to say nothing of other Republican candidates so extreme as to be laughable, but being promoted seriously by the Republican Party, Buck of Colorado, Miller of Alaska, Paul of Kentucky, and others as well. It seems to me that if the electorate had any brains at all people of this ilk would not have become candidates in the first place.

Finally, I suggest this election is so bizarre, and the candidates so far out, it may also be perceived as a test of sanity. If someone like Sharron Angle, who wants to do away with social security, the departments of energy and education, force women to bear the children of rapists or incestuous relationships, and other extremist positions, can be elected I would have to suspect the sanity of those who voted for her. The same is true of Buck of Colorado, Miller of Alaska, O’Donnell, and others who harbor such nonsensical and even destructive beliefs. Similarly, it seems to me to be insane to elect candidates whose followers stomp on defenseless women, attack opponents’ supporters, and engage in other acts of violence, including the suggestion that if they cannot win by the ballet they will encourage armed rebellion. This is not politics as usual, it is rampant insanity. I have to question both the mentality and the sanity of a party who seems to believe a person widely believed to be unfit for the office of vice-president could someone be promoted as a serious candidate for President of the United States. Along these same lines, one would have to know more about the psychopatholoy of racism and abnormal obsessiveness that many of these people exhibit. There is nothing in Obama’s record that justifies the hatred they seem to feel for him or the willingness, even eagerness, to believe he is not an American citizen, might be a Muslim, a terrorist, communist, socialist, or whatever (he’s black). Much of this I believe can be described as just plain “sick.”

LKBIQ:

“In the United States, it is almost inconceivable what rubbish a public man has to utter today if he is to keep respectable.”

John Maynard Keynes

TILT:

Top speed for Wildebeest is approximately 40 miles per hour.