A very nice counter to the idea that demographics is against the GOP and that 2012 is the future of the GOP if it stays as it is: http://www.redstate.com/2012/11/09/the-only-thing-you-need-to-read-today-about-the-election/

Presidential Derangement Syndrome –

A very real Threat to the American Republic

            A bit of a disclaimer is in order before we begin.  I have been a sporadic political activist for the last 15 years in the Republican Party.  I have only voted for a handful of Democrats in my life and have voted third party on a couple occasions when I was really unhappy with the candidate that my party has put forward.  Generally I would consider myself to be what most people would consider a very safe Republican voter or even a stalwart of the Grand Old Party.  I have been an arm chair historian every since I wrote my first research paper as a summary of World War Two in the 5^th grade.  When I started college, I expected to become a professor of history.  After many sidetracks, I ended up with a doctorate degree in Law.  I approach a lot of issues from a historical perspective.  I am heavily influenced by the idea that history repeats itself because we are foolish enough to refuse to learn its lessons. 

In watching and participating in our political system on the grassroots level for almost my entire adult life and viewing those events from a historical perspective, I am deeply troubled by what I have been seeing over the last twelve years. 

In 2003, Charles Krauthamer added a new mental illness to our political lexicon, BDS or Bush Derangement Syndrome.^[1] Dr. Krauthamer defined BDS as “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency – nay – the very existence of George W. Bush.”^[2] In 2008 Lee Speigle suggested a new version of the illness, ODS or Obama Derangement Syndrome.^[3] Let me suggest that these two ‘disorders’ are representative of something very serious that might, if we are not extremely careful, take long term root in our political system. 

Presidential Derangement Syndrome (PDS) is basically when an otherwise normal individual experiences an acute onset of paranoia in reaction to the presidency of a specific individual.  Individuals suffering from PDS will believe the most vile rumors about the President in question and will disregard any objective information that conflicts with the vile rumors.  For example, according to a Harris Poll conducted in March 2010, about 25% of Americans believed that President Obama was not born in the United States and was thus not eligible to be President of these United States.^[4] Likewise, according to a 2006 University of Ohio poll, slightly more than one half of Democrats believed that it was either very or somewhat likely that President Bush was complicit in the 9/11 attacks.^[5]
 There are very valid reasons for disagreeing with and opposing the policies of both men.  However, to completely assume the worst about the lawfully elected President^[6], and to ignore or dismiss any objective evidence to the contrary is irrational at best.  At worst it alls into question the validity of our belief in republicanism.^[7]
If PDS is apparent only in a few political nut jobs then it is merely the sad effect of  “looserism”^[8] and need not concern us any further.  When half of a major party or a quarter of our entire population believe some vile rumor about our President then we have a much more serious problem on our hands. 

            We humans have always had political and cultural disagreements, probably since we first had to divide those early bands of stone age hunter/gatherer clans into smaller bands to enable everyone to find enough food.^[9]

  Our recorded history is full of ethnic cleansings and outright genocide against other clans or tribes.  This conflict is probably as deeply rooted in human nature as is the need to eat, sleep, and procreate. 

            The tremendous achievement of Western Civilization, and indeed what one of the most important things that makes the United States such an exceptional nation is that we have set up a process for resolving these political conflicts in a peaceful manner.  The United States is the first truly multi-ethnic nation-state to have achieved this.  While there are democracies and republics that were instrumental in developing the ideas that we put into practice, one must keep in mind a few historical facts.  The Athenian Democracy lasted only 40 years before it reverted to dictatorship.  The Roman Republic was built on armed conquest with captives in war turned into slaves.  When Roman rule developed to the point that it could be called truly multi-ethnic by modern standards they had reverted to dictatorship with the trappings of republicanism and that they spent 75% of their annual government budget on their military, which also doubled as their police forces.  Most of the other republican experiments that started in short order following our example, the French Revolution and the various independence movements in Latin America have had very turbulent histories. 

            Our exceptional achievement of peacefully settling our political disputes is seriously threatened when we stop believing in the process that makes peaceful settlement of those disputes possible.  We agree that if we loose this election we will have another in a fixed time according to fixed rules.  Presidential Derangement Syndrome, when present in a wide section of the general population, calls into question whether we will continue to believe in that system that has served us for the last 220+ years.  And I, as a historian and as a person who loves my country, am truly worried about our future.

            If we stop believing in the process, and the falling confidence we have in our national Congress as well as the spread of PDS both point to that outcome, then we are only one major crisis from deciding, as the Athenians and the Romans did, to junk the whole self-government thing and fall back to a more arbitrary form of government.  This crisis could be something like the foreseeable failure of our social safety net or the eventual rise of another superpower with sufficient power in the world to force us to pay off our rapidly expanding debt. 

I do not believe that either of these events will happen in the next twenty years but just because the event is not imminent, it does not mean that we should not take steps to make sure it does not happen.  Is that not the point of all the concern over climate change?  To try and prevent a possible future that limited available data is suggesting as a possibility but not a certainty?  Is that not why we buy life insurance? 

I would prefer to believe that it could not happen here but as I said at the start of this post, history has an extremely bad history of repeating itself because we don’t listen. 

---

[1] Krauthamer, Charles.  Delusional Dean, Wash. Post, Dec. 5, 2003, at A31, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A37125-2003Dec4

[2] Id.

[3] Speigel, Lee. Obama Derangement Syndrome, ABC News Political Punch, Nov. 10, 2008.  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/11/obama-derangeme/

[4] Harris Interactive. “Wingnuts” and President Obama.  March 24, 2010.  http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/223/Default.aspx

[5] Smith, Ben.  More than half of Democrats believe Bush knew.” Politico, April 22, 2011. http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0411/More_than_half_of_Democrats_believed_Bush_knew.html

[6] To assume that President Obama holds the office under fraudulent circumstances or that President Bush was complicit in the murder of nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens.

[7] Republicanism is the idea that human beings, through elected representatives, govern their own affairs without the need to have a divinely appointed king or other strong individual run the government.  This is as contrasted with Democracy where all competent adults gather and collectively make decisions via a town hall debate or other direct voting process. 

[8] Horowitz, David. Op-Ed. Get over Obama Derangement Syndrome.  Politico, Dec. 8, 2008.  http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1208/16306.html

[9] Maybe even longer given what we are learning about Chimpanzee and their ability to wage a proto form of warfare.  See Viegas, Jennifer. Chimps Engage in ‘War’ for Turf.  Discovery News, Jun 21, 2010.  http://news.discovery.com/animals/chimp-war-behavior.html.  

Welcome to the Old Fool On the Hill blog.

With apologies to Tommy Jefferson, but "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires" that I declare the nature and causes which impel me to create this blog.

First a couple points of clarification, yes, I am referencing the Beatles' song; get over it.  Generally speaking, I am fully confident that if you are not laughing at the Universe, then it is laughing at you.

I am a mildly autistic individual with a touch of attention deficit disorder.  What this means is that I will bounce from topic to topic but generally speaking I focus on politics, legal issues that grab my attention, general ranting about how often people who take themselves too seriously need to be the subject of ego deflation, and just about anything that grabs my attention at the moment.  Generally speaking, as an autistic, I've spent much of my life trying to figure out what makes humanity tick, what is the solution to the "human equation?"  So I'll bring in topics that are about human nature, the structure of society, and other like topics.

I don't expect many readers to really understand what I'm saying; I tend to make observations that assume a much higher level of historical education than most people have.  You can either ask me to explain or assume that I'm just an "old fool sitting on the hill watching the world go around."  I also use a lot of old sayings (often from Aseop's Fables or other classical Western tradition), often shortened so that if you do not know the old saying then you will be scratching your head.  For example, in commenting about a person's (usually a politician) inflexibility on a given topic, I might say "leopard's spots."  I thus assume that the reader will make the immediate jump to the old saying "A leopard can not change his spots."  If you don't get it; ask.  I may not have recognized that I'm making a jump (my law professors frequently graded me down for this on essay exams).

I love to have discussions on controversial subjects but I can not abide rudeness so if you lack the intelligence to use a refined insult and default to profanity or simplistic ad hominem attacks then please expect to be insulted or to have your comment deleted, especially if you are attacking other commentators in a way unbecoming of a gentleman (regardless of you actual gender).