BUSHAHOLISM: A NATIONAL EPIDEMIC
This poor kid is high on Bushahol, one of the most dangerous epidemics of addiction to ever hit our country.
A staggering 51% of American voters were proven to be under the influence at the time of the 2004 presidential elections. While many of the addicted believe this number represents a vast majority of the voting population, it is actually only half.
Mental characteristics of Bushaholism include but may not be limited to bellicosity, belligerence, a feeling of entitlement and privilege, delusions of grandeur, carelessness, self-preservation, exaggeration, a tendency to overspend, tendencies toward religious fundamentalism and nationalism, cognitive dissonance, a lack of sense of humor (or an inability to understand it), susceptibility to argumental fallacies, disregard for the natural environment, a tendency to overreach, difficulty with speaking the English language, desire for conquest and dominance, and a condescending attitude toward fellow humans, particularly those who disagree with them. Physical characteristics may include swaggering, winking, smirking, leaning forward on one's elbows, and flipping people off. Also frequently noted are protruding lips, eyes set too close together, and a furrowed brow.
There is no known cure for Bushaholism, but in some cases a helpful tactic has been to isolate sufferers from their addicted friends and appeal to their sense of reason. This is usually not possible if the subject has acquired a strong sense of religious fundamentalism, but if the patient appears to be a Bushaholic primarily due to fiscal factors, there is a chance for recovery.
Nearly all Bushaholics have the ability to reason and to use critical thinking skills, although many will bypass these skills en route to forming opinions. Instead, they tend to favor the easier route of thinking as prominent ideologues instruct them. However well it may be hidden, most Bushaholics do have a sense of conscience. An appeal to conscience and/or their sense of honesty has been known to convert some sufferers, although deprogrammers should not expect results to be immediate. The addiction of the sufferer is strong, and a gradual approach to recovery is usually more successful.
We on the left need to do our job, and tell our addicted friends to "just say no" to Bushahol!
12 Comments:
Nice post, Snave!
In my college psychology class "cognitive dissonance" was defined as the result of the collision between how one views reality and some other version of reality. It was supposed to be the basis of thought itself. I don't really see the Bushaholics in danger of cognitive dissonance, That would require acknowledging that there are alternative viewpoints from their own.
Otherwise, I agree with this one completely. Actually, I usually agree with you on about 98% of the things you post. One of us must be psychic. :-)
Have a nice day.
Thanks very much, oh psychic one!
This is what happens when you have "Family Values!" and "Jesus!" like the El Shrubbo clan does.
I am beginning to think the lot of the scumbags would be in Prison somewhere if not for the Governmental influence. There really are bad people in the world, and the Bush clan fit the bill.
There is not rational reason for the behaviour and it seems to happen even in the best of families.
I warned my wife 9/13/01 that everyone seemed to be pulling together initially but that it was only going to be a short matter of time before we started pulling apart at the seams.
Sure enough, Iraq needed to be invaded so that the public could be manipulated into another 4 years of folly. The lowest crudest abuse of power because the natural tendency is to get behind the home team no matter what. We all defend family when it's challenged.
Bush abused the good nature of the American people.
Think I blogged about cognitive dissonance way way back during the election had a link to a useful PDF. Merely a matter of being able to see the wood for the trees, sure its easy to always validate Georges actions, takes a fundimental event like katrina to knock down those illusions.
Actually, George can only see the lumber for the trees.
Can only see "the lumber for the trees." Hahaha.
Touché, J. Marquis!
I knew on September 11, 2001 that Bush was gonna use the disaster as an excuse for a war of aggression. To be completely honest, I was more upset about how I knew it was going to be used than the event itself.
Maybe it was because I was abroad at the time, so I was already very concerned with how the US was interacting with the rest of the world.
Bush had already given us a dirty eye by backing away from Kyoto, from doing nothing about those Japanese students killed in Hawaii, by posturing at China when our spy plane went down in their territory when we were not supposed to be there in their air space spying on them to start with. As if spying on them was our right. How dare they stop us from doing it, He was mispronouncing people's names and trying to provoke the rest of the world from the very beginning.
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I so want to reply to this on the spying issue Sheryl raised.
I wrote a reply and had to erase it before posting.
Let me reword it without getting myself in trouble.
Spying is a right, a necessity and the only thing that keeps agressive nations from taking the world into chaos.
The perversion of that tool is one of the gravest crimes commited by this administration.
Americas intelligence services have had their credibility damaged by abuse not failure but the result will last longer than this administration and the occupation of Iraq.
Truth is power and Cheney buried the truth under a mountain of hand picked lies and half truths.
A different perspective on the spy plane incident
Judging by the behavior of addicts, Bushahol is way too addicting to be treated with "just say no." These hopeless addicts will need months, if not years, of extreme rehab therapy to shake off their addictions. I wish them well.
Spying is a right
That's certainly what they said about the Patriot Act as well.
I can see spying as a necessary evil, but I think if countries get caught at it, they are still violating the other countries rights in doing so. I think spying is like a starving person stealing.
If a starving person steals, then technically they are in fact doing something wrong, but there is justification for it. For if a starving person steals, they still are stealing and stealing is still wrong. It's not as if stealing is right because the ends justify the means.
Or like if a burglar gets bit by a vicious dog trying to steal from someone. We lose our planes because we are violating chinese air space. Or Watergate--that was spying too. Was that a right? Because spying is not just about safety. It often is also about tipping political power.
Our leaders may have a responsibility to their citizens to check up on other nations, but the leaders of those other nations also have duties to their citizens. If we get busted breaking a law, then that is the chance you taking breaking that law. But other countries should have sovereignty over their territory. Just like we should have sovereignty over ours.
If we took a chinese plane down that was illegally in our air space spying on us, would you consider it their right as well?
I'm not saying we should not spy on other countries, but if we get busted, we are still the ones who are illegally in their air space.
If you want to do it from a satellite in outer space, then at least you are not in their air space, but that is not what was going on.
Sheryl, you obviously didn't follow the link on my last comment.
There's a long body of international law on spying and the end result is that spying is every countrys right and it is the right of every country to catch and counter.
However, if China were willing to sign on to Open Skies as the United States did in 1992 they could over fly any part of the United States any time they wanted.
China is the bad player in this case, not the United States.
My perspective on spying is that it is a defensive form of warfare, not offensive. Open skies is evidence that I am not alone.
Spying is a right of nations for defesive purposes in time of peace.
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