Category Archives: Psychology

Quote of the day—M.E. Thomas

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I understand why sociopaths can be scary — we don’t have any of the emotional barriers. But empaths can be scary too, especially when their emotional sense of right and wrong overwhelms rational barriers.

M.E. Thomas
February 4, 2014
J’Accuse: Twitter justice
[I found this incredibly insightful. She is right. “FOR THE CHILDREN!!!”, is just one example. Gun control is an example. The facts don’t matter. The constitutional limits don’t matter. Natural law and the right to self-defense don’t matter. All that matters is “gun violence.”

Their emotional sense of right and wrong has overwhelmed all rational barriers and they are willing send innocent people to concentration camps because GUNS (H/T to David Hardy):

One could make the argument that a society would be better off with sociopathic public servants who are subject to complete transparency and strictly enforced rules than empathic ones and little accountability.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeannie Darneille

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I am not a person who handles guns. I don’t own guns. I don’t…they shock me, quite frankly. We’re an open carry state and when I see people open carrying their guns, while it may be perfectly legal, it creates a visceral, personal, physical reaction in me as it does in other people…

Jeannie Darneille
January 29, 2014
Washington State Senator  (D-27th District)
In Senate, less circus, more circumspection, no media, one ‘shock’
[This is precisely what Anonymous Conservative says happens in the brains of liberals. The rabbit brain cannot handle the concept of stress. To others guns are tools to protect innocent life when threatened with immediate danger—a stressful situation.

She is compelled to reduce the thought of stress by demanding you become a rabbit or at least masquerade as a rabbit.—Joe]

Making the enemy’s argument

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Now I feel dirty. Last week I was playing devil’s advocate with Joe, making the left’s arguments the best I could, seeing what he’d come up with in response. I think it’s important to have the ability to argue the points of the other side at least as well as those True Believers (useful idiots) that the power brokers rely on to maintain the rank and file. It is my thesis that once you can do a good job making the left’s case, you’ll have a better understanding of the fundamental differences in world views, and can then focus on those differences and bring them to light efficiently.

I wrote this last week, but hesitated to post it. Well here it is anyway;

Joe; Secondary or even tertiary point: Everyone can express an opinion. But until you express it in numbers which actually represent
the benefits and costs you haven’t proved anything beyond that you can string words together and form sentences.

Me; You want to limit the manner in which I may speak. People are not numbers, nor are they statistics. The starving people of the
world, the hopeless and the desperate, do not need statistics to know that they are hungry, and neither numbers nor your fake intellectual arguments for “freedom” will feed them.

Joe; Primary point: Government is force. At the most basic level it is the power to kill people that oppose it. Who granted and where
and when did government get this power to compel the whole of society to work for the “common good” instead of protecting the individual ability to make their own decisions and chart their own course in life?

Me; Yes; government is force, and you are as willing as anyone else to see that force used, so long as it is used to further your
ideals at the expense of other’s ideals.

Who granted, and where did you get the power to decide that people should NOT work for the common good, that they should instead be concerned only with themselves at the expense of everyone else, at the expense of the entire planet, and at the expense of everyone in the future? You are ignoring the grave and destructive consequences of that which you advocate.

Joe; It is immoral to force another to do their bidding for the good of another when their previous actions harmed no one. Your
“greater good” argument is nothing but a weak justification for slavery by another name. Advocates of such a society deserve all the scorn, revulsion, ostracizing, and political as well as physical resistance due any other slaver.

Me: You free-marketers use some form of this argument frequently, but is a false and blatantly hypocritical argument. First; who gave you and your cronies the exclusive power to define for everyone else what is and is not “moral”? It seems you are manipulating that definition to suit your own selfishness and convenience. You often use your “morality” as a weapon against people you wish to suppress, causing them harm.

You are perfectly willing to use force to protect your property and your comfortable way of life, even to the point of owning guns yourself and training to kill people, and yet you complain when government uses force, in a democratic republic which you claim to advocate and which is merely doing the will of the People? Could there BE a higher, more virulent form of hypocrisy? No, Sir; don’t tell me you’re against using force while you simultaneously brag about walking around with a loaded gun. “Disgraceful” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

An don’t speak to me about capitalism having “harmed no one”. The “free market system” (a disgusting term) of greed and opulence for the few is in fact, to put it in your own words, “forcing some to do the bidding of others” as people trapped in poverty are forced to work as wage-slaves for the people with the money and property. Further, when a more powerful corporation puts a smaller one out of business (because they never understand when enough is enough and they always want more more more) they have harmed that smaller business and everyone who depended on it for their sustenance. They’ve been put out onto the streets, and you claim “no harm”? The extent of your denial is fascinating, and very telling. Explain that to the family that’s in bankruptcy court because the parents lost their jobs due to “free market competition” from a Big Box store chain. Capitalism is constantly harming other people, and in many, many ways, and yet you blindly hold it up and cling to it as though it were the greatest thing ever.

Yet I can forgive you– You’ve been conditioned all your life to believe this gunk, and it’s extremely difficult to overcome one’s life-long programming without some kind of shock to initiate the process of waking up from one’s materialist fever. Well I have news for you. I’ll have the courage to say it if no one else will; you had better start waking up because your time is running out– You represent the past whereas We the Citizens of the World represent the future.
===========================================

I think that pretty well represents the mind of the useful idiot. I could go on and on of course, and adding more layers of complexity, more erroneous assertions and accusations, and appeals to envy, anger, victim mentality and other emotion is all part of the game, but that’s a good sample. Those at the top of the political power food chain benefit greatly from this kind of thinking and its proliferation, but they don’t believe any of it for a second. It’s a tool. A big part of the game lies in putting the freedom advocate off his game with endless accusations and insults, never allowing any issue to come to resolution. The crazier the assertions, sometimes, the better– Whatever it takes to hijack someone’s emotions thus throwing them off balance, while taking advantage of any self doubt or insecurity, with the oft used grand finale of putting the capitalist into a pathetic minority, opposed to a glorious and energetic majority. It works extremely well on young people of course, and so they have been a perennial target. We usually fall for it too. Republicans (the ones who may not actually be Progressives) fall for it practically 100% of the time.

Where we often fail is in forgetting that the ideal of freedom appeals to people’s strengths and potential, whereas the leftist tactics appeal to our weaknesses, our emotions of envy, insecurity, fear, anger and so on.

Therefore it’s an entirely different argument with an entirely different set of appeals, with virtually no overlap. What works for the Dark Side cannot, will not, work for human freedom.

More from Churchill

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Though he wasn’t born here, he obviously was an American;

“Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.”

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“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

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“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

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“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

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“I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly”

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“A joke is a very serious thing.”

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From brainyquote.com

The British Parliament of course hated him, or so it is said.

Quote of the day—Anonymous Conservative

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Leftists and Narcissists have weaker amygdalae which can’t handle stress, or process it into productive actions, and it will often manifest on the face as a subtle anxiety, sadness, or anger beneath their expressed emotions. Leftism is an attempt by leftists to prevent amygdala stimulation by seeking conditions of full government control of everyone, where no one can ever surpass the leftist in happiness or success. When such an individual’s amygdala fires off in response to their environment, anything and everything is on the table to stop the anxiety, provided that what they do doesn’t offer the threat of greater amygdala stimulation. So shooting an innocent girl is a viable amygdala relaxation technique, but encountering an armed individual capable of fighting back and hurting them, such as a Sheriff’s Deputy is not. This is why Communism so frequently devolves into oppressive bloodbaths, and why anyone who lets these idiots within a mile of any real power is a fool.

Anonymous Conservative
January 6, 2014
Amygdala Activation, Facial Expression, And Aberrant Behavior
[Both his blog and his book have some fascinating insights that seem to explain a lot of what would otherwise appear to be irrational behavior by leftist/progressives/communists. In this posts he offers an explanation of why most mass shooters have leftist political beliefs and they shoot themselves as soon as they encounter resistance.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Clayton Cramer

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Watching Aborn’s attempt to define fear of gun bans as paranoid while arguing in favor of gun bans makes me disinclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the leaders.

Clayton Cramer
December 17, 2013
Not Trying to Ban Guns – Except When We Are
[H/T to Say Uncle.

The problem is they have mental problems. They literally cannot see they contributed to the situation.

I have a lot of experience dealing with this sort of “thinking”. Stacy, my counselor for dealing with this sort of thing, explained this was one of the symptoms of personality disorders. The essence of the explanation applicable in this context is as follows:

If you tell a normal person their actions contributed to a particular situation or result and suggest changing their behavior might result in a better outcome they will respond with something like, “I think I understand, I will try your suggestion next time.” The person with a personality disorder cannot see they contributed to the situation in any way. They never did anything wrong and will refuse to change their behavior.

There is no point in trying to have a logical discussion with these type of people. Your only productive recourse is to “set boundaries”, tell them you will not tolerate their irrational behavior, and then enforce those boundaries. As difficult as this is in interpersonal relationships it’s even more difficult when these people have political power, the power of government force, over you. This is why we have the 2nd Amendment. It is the last ditch resort to enforcing boundaries.

Further complicating the issue is that when you enforce those boundaries “the crazy” may get far, far worse. They can and will do extremely destructive things. In interpersonal relationships this is one the paths by which people get murdered by their abusive spouse.

Gun owners have a lot in common with abused spouses and should be aware things can very rapidly get much much worse.—Joe]

Politician crazy talk

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These people have mental problems:

Senator Kevin de Leόn (D-Los Angeles) today announced he would introduce legislation to ban the sale, manufacture, purchase and trafficking of “ghost guns” unless they are pre-registered with the Department of Justice through a serial number and gun owner background check.  In order to receive a serial number, self-made or assembled firearm must include permanent metal components that cannot be detached and that are detectable as required by existing law.

…

“Gun parts can be obtained online or now with 3D printers made at home, leaving no way for law enforcement to ensure that prohibited individuals are not making ghost guns on their own,” said Senator De Leόn.  “No one knows they exist and there is no way to know if criminals or other dangerous individuals are circumventing firearm laws by making these guns.”

If the concern is, as it appears to be in the press release, that a gun can be easily made with a 3-D printer by someone prohibited from possessing a firearm then how is a law prohibiting such guns being made going to be more effective than the law prohibiting the possession once the gun is finished?

“Permanent metal components that cannot be detached”? I don’t care if it is riveted, glued, or completely encased in plastic, it can, almost trivially, be removed. Drill or grind out any rivets, drill a hole in the metal to insert a screw, heat the metal until it slightly melts the plastic and then pull it the metal out via the inserted screw. Then, if needed, refill the void with plastic/wood/fiberglass/whatever.

And that is if the guy pushing the “Print” button isn’t smart enough to delete the extra instructions for the 3-D printer to make the void for the metal part in the first place.

And in any case does this guy think such a law will be any more effective than laws banning recreational drugs? This is crazy talk.

I would expect to find more rational people in long term care at a psych ward. Maybe he hasn’t been taking his meds recently.

Delusions are not “incredibly successful”

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Brian Malte, of Handgun Control Inc. (aka The Brady Campaign), says:

The laws that Colorado passed are still on the books, and even the senators that were recalled said they would do it all over again for public safety. And when you have nine out of 10 Americans feeling strongly that background checks are the right thing to do, we will prevail. We’ll do everything we can to protect those gun laws, and we don’t think they’ll be repealed. We think they’re popular enough.

But law enforcement in Colorado says:

Some sheriffs, like Sheriff Cooke, are refusing to enforce the laws, saying that they are too vague and violate Second Amendment rights. Many more say that enforcement will be “a very low priority,” as several sheriffs put it. All but seven of the 62 elected sheriffs in Colorado signed on in May to a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statutes.

The resistance of sheriffs in Colorado is playing out in other states, raising questions about whether tougher rules passed since Newtown will have a muted effect in parts of the American heartland, where gun ownership is common and grass-roots opposition to tighter restrictions is high.

Beyond that are the court challenges to the new laws and the successful recall elections of three (two plus one resignation because of the recall in process) of the politicians who voted for the laws.

Malte says, “I think 2013 was incredibly successful.”

They passed laws which law enforcement is refusing to enforce, politicians are getting recalled over, are being seriously challenged in the courts and he thinks that is “incredibly successful”?

I think his group over reached, is headed for major defeats, and he is delusional.

These people have mental problems.

More on mental disorders

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American Mercenary elaborates on some stuff I have been saying.

He pulled many of the symptoms of Emotional Regulation Disorder (aka Borderline Personality Disorder) from here and puts them in the context of our debates with anti-gun people. It’s scary accurate.

I’m certain these people have a mental disorder.

Barb and I both have personal experience with people that have these behaviors. I read many of the symptoms aloud to her as I was reading his post. It’s really spooky to read about someone you know from a list of mental disorder symptoms.

Quote of the day—Keri L (@ikeriover)

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@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc that’s a backwards argument. I own guns to kill people with guns. *facepalm*

Keri L (@ikeriover)
December 11, 2013
In response to “Defense of innocent life is why I own guns.”
[Then why do the police have guns?

The lack of rational thought process in these type of people has me convinced they have a mental disorder. Further evidence is that this tweet of mine:

If you believe no one is trying to take away our rights then you aren’t paying attention: https://blog.joehuffman.org/category/gun-rights/no-one-wants-to-take-your-guns/.

Resulted in a response from her of:

if you believe that it’s OK to gun down little children… you both need your head checked.

I’m very familiar with this sort of thought “process”. Apparently they imagine, and truly believe, you said or wrote something other than what you did. There was a case where I went through an email line-by-line with a certain person and ultimately they agreed I didn’t say what they claimed I said. Then mere seconds later they again made the same false claim. Pointing out they just agreed I didn’t say that resulted in a claim that they didn’t mean it when they said it. I went through this process three times with the same result each time before I finally gave up in extreme frustration.

Mental problems. I’m completely convinced of it.—Joe]

Ordered thought of the day

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You know; ordered as opposed to random, just because I feel like being a smart ass.

The most ignorant, uninspired person in the room is the one who’s most interested in running things.

The person who’s doing nothing, seeing the person who’s doing something, will become irritated and try to tell the person who’s doing something that he’s doing it wrong or that he shouldn’t be doing it, and/or that the doer is victimizing the non doer with all his inconsiderate and irresponsible doing. Failure in that strategy requires falling back on plan B; taking credit for the works of the doer that could not be redirected or discouraged.

The non doer views the mastery of this simple strategy as incontrovertible proof of superior intelligence and worth.

This is the basis of all politics, in the same sense that space, time, matter and energy are the bases of life– It is a fundamental law of nature.

It depends on how I feel

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Yesterday I posted some screen clippings of Tweets by @lougagliardi. Today I received these Tweets directed at me from them:

.@JoeHuffman hates free speech. He hates people that disagree with him. Why is he so angry? what is he trying to compensate for?

— Me (@lougagliardi) November 26, 2013

interesting that @JoeHuffman believes the screenshots of a pro-gun, transphobic bigot without actual links to anything. should sue for libel

— Me (@lougagliardi) November 26, 2013

 

This gave me flashbacks and other symptoms of mild PTSD from years of dealing with someone with mental health issues. @lougagliardi lives in an alternate universe where they imagine I have written things that have no basis in our reality.

If I hated free speech, in particular speech by @lougagliardi, why would I posted their Tweets? Where is the evidence I hate free speech?

Where have I said @lougagliardi should be sued for libel or anything for that matter?

@lougagliardi either imagines I have said things I have not or believes they can read my mind and spectacularly fails when they attempt to do so. I can feel the anxiety rise up as the flashbacks occur of these same things happening to me before.

All that remains to complete the connection to interactions I once had with someone else with mental health issues is to ask, “What is the process by which you determine truth from falsity?” And their reply being, conclusively confirming the mental health issues, “It depends on how I feel.”

I don’t have food

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In any conflict, the most important thing is to understand exactly what it is that’s conflicting with what. If you can’t define the opposition, or even name it, you can’t fight it. Worse yet is to fail to understand what it is you’re fight FOR.

Even those ostensibly opposed to ObamaCare are often heard conflating medical insurance with medical treatment, as though one equals the other– If you don’t have insurance, you have no “health care”. They are the same thing.

By that standard, since I do not pay into a common financial pool designed to insure against starvation, I have no food. Period. I do not eat. I’m already dead. I died back in 1958 or ’59 as soon as my mother ran out of milk. I’m a ghost. Boo!

The notion that I might simply pay directly for my food, as I wish, and choose my own food provider, with no middle man, no money pool and no qualifications (or, heaven forbid; I might even grow some of it myself) is apparently a foreign concept to those who claim to favor a free market. It simply doesn’t even enter their minds.

If those who are opposed to a nationalized starvation insurance program are telling me I have no food, or if those opposed to ObamaCare are talking about people who have no healthcare, they are insane. They are not on my side. They have been co-opted by the enemy. They are blind, blithering, gibbering idiots, or zombies, who can’t even understand their own words, and yet we tolerate and entertain this insanity. Liberty isn’t even on the table for discussion. We can’t even speak of it, or even define it, and so how can we claim to fight for it?

What’s wrong with us?

Quote of the day—Anonymous Conservative

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The phases are Crisis, High, Awakening, and Unraveling. Here, Crisis is r-psychologies confronted by the shortage of K-selection. This turmoil produces an adaptive shift in the population’s psychology towards a more K-selected, politically Conservative psychology. High is the environment of r-selected resource excess that is produced by a majority K-selected populace, living in an environment where these rewards are enjoyed by those who produce them. Awakening and Unraveling are just the leftists gradually increasing in number due to the r-selection, and fucking up a good thing until it all falls apart, and the Crisis returns.

There is one huge difference this time, and that is our use of public debt to increase resource availability and extend the period of r-selection. This has allowed for a slight increase in the population’s shift towards the r-psychology in this cycle, and lengthened the period of Unraveling. That all will increase the magnitude of the Crisis we will face. This would have been predictable, if you had viewed the increases in national debt which began around 1980 in the context of this work . The disturbing aspect of this is that when the collapse comes, the hardcore Left will be particularly loony, since their amygdalae have essentially no adaptation to a more free, competitive environment. Today, not having free government healthcare, and free cellphones is the same to them as being tossed into Lord of the Flies. When things get so bad that there is no food or housing, they will be capable of anything. The coming Crisis will be epic.

Anonymous Conservative
June 14, 2013
Strauss and Howe’s Generational Theory, in the Context of r/K Theory
[What the author of the post claims will happen is that as society collapses the liberal psychology (“r-selected” people) will be unable to handle it and non-liberals (“K-selected” people) will physically, environmentally, and evolutionarily dominate the situation and come out of the crisis far better than the liberals.

Ry and I were discussion something a bit tangential to this yesterday and what he said is valid. Paraphrasing, “We need to be careful reading this stuff because it matches what we believe and want to believe.”

Still, I have ordered the book and look forward to listening to it.—Joe]

Criminal psychology

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I’m in the process of making a post on personality disorders, liberalism, and how to deal with them. I read a fascinating blog post about it. It is very long but awesome. I’ll get my synopsis out in a day or three.

In the mean time I engaged an anti-gun person on Twitter to do some testing. Here is the result:

@DanielHupke @_Garreth_ If only that BOOM was another #gunbully eating his gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Come on baby, suck that gun, pull that trigger.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@ConcldCourier @snwflk713 @_Garreth_ @PatriotTay @MomsDemand Suck the bullets out!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

Eh. There wasn’t any bullying to be seen. There was only law-abiding citizens exercising their rights. @rosesindew @HelloPoodle

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew Funny how THAT got you needing to advertise your gun-gun.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

I hate to break it to you, but I’ve been lawfully bearing arms for over a decade now. #assumption #fail @HelloPoodle @rosesindew

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew So what? Why is it such a big deal that you’ve got to point your guns at people?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew People that attempt to infringe our rights are either ignorant or criminals: http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You have every right to shoot yourselves. Stay in your own yard & play together.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

HelloPoodle @linoge_wotc @rosesindew We do. Our yard is called the United States of America. If you don’t like it go someplace else.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc I love watching cunts like you get obsessed with me. Love it. Hilarious. Shows your true motives.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Nah, I got the anchor babies on ObamaCare now. Lots of free shit, ya know? Hoo hoo ha ha #RWNJ

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc it’s called exposing gun control advocates as the bullies they are, ur doing a great job helping me!

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Nah, you’re just a cunt who wanted attention & sympathy she didn’t get. A little ego maniacal.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Keep talking about your big guns & how nobody is gunna take ’em. Paranoid much?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Like your mom?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc again thanks for proving me right over and over

— Christine Larios (@rosesindew) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc more like you

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc Yes, we’ve proven you’re a cunt & this isn’t about guns at all. Just that you’re scum.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@rosesindew @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc My, aren’t you the attention whore. Do a cartwheel now!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc People who conspire to infringe the rights of others go to prison. You should find a good lawyer.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Oooohh you’re being conspired against now. Tin foil hat a little tight?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You have had EVERY opportunity to show responsibility in gun ownership. But what have you chosen to do?

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m just gathering evidence to be submitted at your trial.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Public opinion is drastically rising against you. Again, it’s about the tea party crap, not guns.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’m a certified firearms instructor. What have you done beside commit crimes against gun owners?

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You’re just too fucking stupid to realize you don’t point guns at soccer moms to get their support.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I’ll alert the press. This should be good.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc What “crimes” are being done to you? Are you feeling unsafe again? They’re coming for you!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc I hope your delusions are worth it. It must be lonely in your imaginary world: http://t.co/5xI0QbHMsF

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc http://t.co/7VZA2zFoAJ

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Well, you have your guns. For now.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @rosesindew @linoge_wotc That sounds like a threat. It’s going into your file.

— Joe Huffman (@JoeHuffman) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc You really are fucking paranoid. Not sure you should have weapons. @NewYorkFBI

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Ooooooh, the teatard is scary!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@JoeHuffman @rosesindew @linoge_wotc Don’t you mean FOIL? They’re out there. Whop whop! Here come the black helicopters!

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

So @HelloPoodle is back to wishing death on those she disagrees with? Must suck to be that consumed by hate. @rosesindew @JoeHuffman

— Linoge (@linoge_wotc) November 12, 2013

@HelloPoodle @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew You wood think a poodle would be more laid back. Must be tough having a bark & no bite

— Hal (@Hal_Maine) November 12, 2013

@linoge_wotc @rosesindew @JoeHuffman Oh, look, you’re back for more. Actually, it’s fun hating scum suckers like you. Dumb pig.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Yeah, I better show everybody my gun so they’ll wonder if I might be dangerous.

— hellopoodle (@HelloPoodle) November 12, 2013

@Hal_Maine @JoeHuffman @linoge_wotc @rosesindew Gotta make sure you let everybody know you’re carrying though, right? NRA bumper sticker?

Psychology of mass shooters

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I took a lot of psychology classes in college and, IIRC, got straight A’s in them. I really enjoyed them. I thought it was fascinating.

So it isn’t surprising this article was of extreme interest to me:

Massacre killers are typically marked by what are considered personality disorders: grandiosity, resentment, self-righteousness, a sense of entitlement. They become, says Dr. Knoll, ” ‘collectors of injustice’ who nurture their wounded narcissism.” To preserve their egos, they exaggerate past humiliations and externalize their anger, blaming others for their frustrations. They develop violent fantasies of heroic revenge against an uncaring world.

…

Mass shooters aim to tell a story through their actions. They create a narrative about how the world has forced them to act, and then must persuade themselves to believe it. The final step is crafting the story for others and telling it through spoken warnings beforehand, taunting words to victims or manifestos created for public airing.

What these findings suggest is that mass shootings are a kind of theater. Their purpose is essentially terrorism—minus, in most cases, a political agenda. The public spectacle, the mass slaughter of mostly random victims, is meant to be seen as an attack against society itself. The typical consummation of the act in suicide denies the course of justice, giving the shooter ultimate and final control.

We call mass shootings senseless not only because of the gross disregard for life but because they defy the ordinary motives for violence—robbery, envy, personal grievance—reasons we can condemn but at least wrap our minds around. But mass killings seem like a plague dispatched from some inhuman realm. They don’t just ignore our most basic ideas of justice but assault them directly.

The perverse truth is that this senselessness is just the point of mass shootings: It is the means by which the perpetrator seeks to make us feel his hatred. Like terrorists, mass shooters can be seen, in a limited sense, as rational actors, who know that if they follow the right steps they will produce the desired effect in the public consciousness.

Part of this calculus of evil is competition. Dr. Mullen spoke to a perpetrator who “gleefully admitted that he was ‘going for the record.’ ” Investigators found that the Newtown shooter kept a “score sheet” of previous mass shootings. He may have deliberately calculated how to maximize the grotesqueness of his act.

The human mind is a marvelous and sometimes bizarre thing. I’ve seen some really strange behavior from people with personality disorders. Probably the best short story is that I know someone who convinced a judge that his being caught sitting on his ex-wife’s chest on the sidewalk punching her in the face was self-defense.

Stacy, my counselor, told me people with personality disorders cannot, or will not, admit there is a problem with themselves. It’s always someone else’s fault. Keep that in mind. It’s a huge telltale. Another one, also from Stacy, is that personality disorder symptoms are more prominent when they are interacting with people in close personal relationships with. Family members and spouses get the worst of it. Co-workers and strangers may think they are perfectly normal people.

Attempting to interact with them can be challenging. Having a “model” to help understand, identify, and predict their behavior is incredibly useful. We owe a big thanks to the author of this article and the researchers who investigated the psychology of these people.

H/T Say Uncle.

Crazy talk

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For a long time I never really understood battered person syndrome where someone would stay with, go back to, or find a new partner that also abused them. Why couldn’t they see what everyone else thought was obvious? How could they think that was normal?

I understand better now. Even though I’m not a psychologist I’ve dealt with a number of crazy people in my life and I’m getting pretty good at recognizing “crazy” when I see it and what to do about it. This book helped a bunch: Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder.

It turns out a close parallel can be drawn between those that tolerate and even seek abuse in their personal relationships and our current relationship with the anti-gun people and our governments.

Read this and look at the parallel:

Since the victim is not at fault and the violence is internally driven by the abuser’s need to control, this self-blame results in feelings of helplessness rather than empowerment. The feeling of being both responsible for and helpless to stop the violence leads in turn to depression and passivity. This learned depression and passivity makes it difficult for the abused partner to marshal the resources and support system needed to leave.

We are told that “gun violence” is our fault. We are abused for something we had nothing to do with. We are told we must change and tolerate yet another abusive act. But no matter how much we concede, no matter how much abuse we put up with they always come back and abuse us more.

It’s driven, as in the battered person syndrome, by the abuser’s need to control. It is not because of anything we have done wrong.

We are dealing with a form of insanity and we tolerate it.

You don’t think so? Let me give some examples (see also this blog post).

Goldilocks guns

The anti-gun people want to outlaw guns that are “small and easily hidden”. They want to outlaw “.50 caliber sniper rifles” that are large and powerful . They want to outlaw guns that are “deadly accurate”. They want to outlaw guns that can be used for “spray shooting from the hip”.

You would think that perhaps a gun that fires an intermediate cartridge and is of medium weight and is not easily hidden would be acceptable to them. Nope. Such a gun, when capable of full auto” was called an “assault rifle” by the Germans during WWII. The anti-gun people, utilizing their talent for twisting words and preying on the ability of the public to be easily confused, banned these type of guns as “assault weapons”.

These intermediate power, intermediate size, with intermediate rates of fire, semi, not fully, auto guns were called “assault weapons” and banned.

So some guns are too big. Some guns are too small. But no guns are “just right”. Some guns are too accurate. Some guns can be wildly “sprayed”. But there are no guns that are “just right”.

That’s crazy talk!

1000 round arsenals

To anti-gun people and the press even a hundred rounds of ammunition found in the trunk of a car or in someone’s home is cause for concern. If the police decide to search someone’s car or home the finding of a few hundred rounds of ammunition will nearly take the breath away from the talking heads in the media. If it was within a few blocks of a school they make sure the implication is that each one of those rounds could, and should, be translated into the intent of the gun owner was to kill at least that many children.

This fascination with the number of rounds of ammo reached the point that in 1994 the U.S. Congress was contemplating requiring an arsenal license for people that had more than 1000 rounds of ammunition. There was talk of something similar again after the Newtown Connecticut shooting.

If I am going to the range for practice it is about 400 rounds per handgun and 100 for a rifle. If I were to go to a regional match I would take at least 1000 per gun. If I were to attend a weekend class the minimum round count is typically about 1500.

1000 rounds and they want to require a special license? I can put 1000 rounds of .22 LR in my coat pockets. Do they want me to license my coat?

And even in the most horrific mass shootings only something on the order of 100 rounds are fired. How could a restriction on owning more that 1000 rounds possibly make any difference?

That’s crazy talk!

Registration of guns

Of what benefit is it for guns to be registered? I’ve blogged about this many, times before. It is exceedingly costly and contrary to what you see on T.V. and at the movies it has near zero impact on solving crimes. But still the anti-gun people insist on gun registration.

That’s crazy talk!

Safety

If there were a very clear correlation between highly restrictive gun laws and lower violent crime, suicide, and/or accidental injury or death by gunshot then we could have a meaningful discussion about the merits of firearm regulation. But despite over a 100 years of gun regulation in this country there still isn’t any conclusive data any of the gun laws have improved public safety in any of the instances where they have been implemented.

A decent case can even be made there is more violent crime where firearms are banned. Yet in response to a mass shooting in yet another “gun free zone” they demand still more “gun free zones”.

That’s crazy talk!

Background checks

I’ve blogged about this too. But the more succinct version can be expressed in two sentences.

Background checks to prevent some people from gaining access to firearms is like checking ID to prevent underage drinking and smoking. How long does it take your average high school dropout to find a way to light up while drinking a beer?

Yet even most gun rights activists and gun rights “leaders” don’t object to something that is expensive, time consuming, and open to abuse.

The anti-gun people want to expand a system that clearly doesn’t and can’t possibly work any better than ID checks for underage drinking and smoking.

That’s crazy talk!

One gun a month

Who needs to buy more than one Bible a month? Why do Bible owners get all upset about the minor inconvenience of restricting people to just one Bible a month? It would cut down on trafficking of Bibles from states with lax Bible laws to those with strict Bible laws.

Is that crazy talk? Yup. It’s also crazy talk when you substitute “gun” for “Bible” in that paragraph.

[If you want to claim Bibles aren’t “responsible” for killing people like guns are then substitute “Koran” or “Communist Manifesto” and reevaluate before you engage me in that debate.]

Waiting periods

The anti-gun people want waiting periods before someone can take home a newly purchased gun. When asked why, even in the age of nearly instant background checks, they said they wanted a “cooling off period” so people wouldn’t buy a gun when angry or depressed and used it to harm someone else or themselves without having a few days to think about it.

It that were true then why did they insist on waiting periods even for people that already owned dozens of guns?

That’s crazy talk!

Conclusion

It’s not going to get any better if we continue to tolerate this misbehavior. It’s not in the psychology of the individual that batters their partner and it’s not in the history of governments.

We are better than this.

We must do something about this bad relationship. We need to recognize we are enabling it and we need to place the blame where it really belongs. Only then can we have a normal, healthy relationship. But most of all we have to recognize we have made only feeble attempts at “couples counseling” (the courts) when we probably should be trying to “get out of the relationship”.

Psychology is interesting

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I took a bunch of psychology classes in college. They were easy and fun for me. In one class I got extra credit for participating in grad student psych experiments. One such experiment required I take some sort of standard psychological test. I tested as pretty normal except for two characteristics. One was something like “logical versus emotional”. I was way out of the normal range in the direction of “logical”. The other characteristic was “psychological mindedness” or some such thing. On that “axis” I again scored way out of the normal range in direction of being very “psychologically minded”. The grad student that went over my test results with me said the logical was consistent with being an engineering major. But the level of psychological mindedness was usually only found in psych grad students or professional psychologists. I guess that explained why I enjoyed the classes and did well.

With that in mind I find some parts of political campaigns extremely interesting and at the same time disturbing.

The disturbing part has nothing to do with the actual policies of the candidates or that they are exploiting, probably intentionally, certain psychological characteristics that have nothing to do with sound policy. And in fact have been exploited by leaders throughout history to lead their people to disaster and massive genocide against innocent people. Of course those same psychological tools have been used for good as well as evil.

In the following two videos one of the more interesting irrational characteristics is being exploited:

 

That characteristics is that people tend to go along with the crowd. If large numbers of other people are doing something then there is a strong tendency for others to follow along. People attend political events, sporting events, rock concerts, and many religious events and talk about “the energy” of the crowd. Most people crave this mass excitement and want to be a part of it. In politics the words and the intonation of the speeches are specifically designed (intentionally or not) to stimulate this excitement, to encourage you to participate, and for you to “belong”.

If you remember the 2008 election the media made a big deal about the large number of Obama supporters at the Obama political events. I haven’t noticed that this year. And because I donated some money to the Romney campaign this year I get frequent emails from them. Many of them include pictures of large crowds in support of his campaign. The videos above were just a sample.

I find political events boring. I can sense the “energy” people talk about but the “bandwidth” of the communication is so low that I’m bored. I’d much rather read the politicians policy statements than hear vague words expressed with great excitement interrupted by yelling and applause every few seconds. The “energy” is a source of irritation to me. I get excited by seeing things that work rather than things that excite other people.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t “exploit” this psychological characteristic as well. Besides my personal love of explosives and long range shooting Boomershoot is a means of generating excitement to encourage gun ownership and long range rifle skills. When in front of the camera for Boomershoot I try to emote the enthusiasm that will encourage more participants. I’m not interested in the Boomershoot dinner with a crowd of people but I make it happen, attend, talk to people, and usually say a few things to the crowd because that socialization is extremely important to some people.

This psychological characteristic is just one more reason why we need strict limits on governmental powers. It is not the politician with the best policies that necessarily get chosen. There is some component of policy into the final vote tally but to a large extent it is the politician with the best team of psychologists (whether they realize they are psychologists or not) that can exploit weakness in the human mind for votes, money, and volunteers that will win. And there is a high correlation between those with natural ability in this area and the people who should be kept the greatest distance from political power. Limited government is a means of minimizing the damage done by these people. Both because it reduces the ability of them to do damage and because limited power is less attractive to them in the first place.

They want this to be illegal

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The TSA document I mentioned yesterday has raised quite a stir (via an IM from son James). They want to make it illegal to post the document.

This reminds me of a story about a psychology professor who asked his students to write down on a slip of paper and put in an box short phrases marketers had used that made the students one to buy a product. He then drew them out of the box to discuss them. The first one out of the box was “Under 17 not admitted without parent or guardian.”

They don’t want people to post it and they don’t want you to have it. What do you think that is going to accomplish?

Yeah, I thought so too.

Get it here if you don’t already have a copy.

truth and falsity

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This post originally appeared here but will go away as of June 1, 2015. I am therefore, with permission, making a copy here on my blog.

by Linoge, formerly of ‘walls of the city’ – Sunday, October 18, 2009

Given that Kevin will be forced to upgrade/change his commenting system in the near future, I figured this needed to be preserved for posterity’s sake: MikeB,

I may be getting a glimmer of what it going on here too.

Could you please explain how it is that you determine the difference between truth and falsity?

What is the process you use?

I don’t think you know how to do it. This is a common problem and leads to all sorts of conflicts. Both internal and external. Many of which are exhibiting themselves in your writing.

Joe Huffman | 06.08.09 – 7:37 am | #

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Joe, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, truth or falsity. Unix-Jedi pulled my comments apart, exposed a bunch of contradictions and really ripped me a new one. Good for him. But really my points have been simple enough. Maybe I didn’t express them precisely enough.

I say some DGUs are bogus. That’s the whole point. The one’s we’ve highlighted in our blogs are examples of the millions if you believe Prof. Kleck. I don’t, I believe the ones who say they’re more like 100,000 per year. But, in these examples we can see the mechanism by which a shooter can do something wrong and then cover it up.

The truth or falsity of it would only be known to the shooter. For example, let’s say, hypothetically, because I realize none of us knows for sure, but let’s say the OK pharmacist saw that the kid was down and out, but was still so furious with so much adrenalin pumping that he said the hell with it, and shot the kid five more times.

Now comes the trial. His lawyer encourages him to say the kid was shot in the head but was still moving for his gun and was still a threat. The trial ends in acquittal, the DGU list gets one more entry, and only the pharmacist knows the truth.

Do you think that kind of thing doesn’t happen? Do you think it’s so rare as to be negligible? mikeb302000 | 06.09.09 – 3:09 am | #

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My question is much more general than just relating to guns. It’s about the basics of your understanding of the world around you, “How do you determine if a statement/hypothesis is true or false? What is the process by which you make this determination?”

If you cannot articulate this then, in the most literal sense, you don’t have a clue as to what is true or false, right or wrong, good or evil. This is a common problem with many, many people that I debate guns with. They literally do not know how to figure out if something is true or false. One person said, “It depends on how I feel.” Another said, “Some people figure it out based on logic and facts and others do it based on feelings. Both ways are equally valid–it’s been proven.” So tell us, step by step, how do you determine truth from falsity?

Joe Huffman | 06.09.09 – 7:55 am | #

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I’m a little bit offended by the question, Joe. It sounds incredibly condescending of you to speak as if you and your gun buddies are trained logisticians, philosophically speaking, and I and the antigun folks “cannot articulate this” simple idea.

I try to be objective and open minded. I try to inform myself of the necessary information. I take things with a grain of salt, but not excessively so. I use my best common sense and logic.

I guess there’s more, but that’s the idea.

How’d I do? mikeb302000 | 06.10.09 – 5:45 am | #

——————————————————————————-I’m sorry.

You failed.

No expression of the process. Not even the slightest clue.

You might try reading up on the Scientific Method (and here).

Joe Huffman | 06.10.09 – 6:48 am | #

MikeB302000 had some more things to say concerning the nature of truth and falsehood over at Tam’s weblog, but Joe Huffman has that preserved for the future, so I am not too worried about it.

Remember – these are the people who would strip us of our rights. These are the people who would turn us into criminals (like them) for daring to exercise those rights. These are the people who aid and abet criminals on a daily basis. These are the people who have no respect or regard for the sanctity of human life or the self-defense measures necessary to preserve it. …People who cannot even tell fact from fiction.

Scary, nyet?