You people, you know who I am.

But you don't know why I'm here.

Now, I've been hitting this subject repeatedly in private conversations and also in some blog entries, and I keep hitting it because I think it needs to be hit repeatedly.

There's a lot of discussion right now about the relative intellectual capabilities or potential mental deficiencies of people who are political conservative.  There have been some very valid studies and analyses done by various respected professionals in their fiield that demonstrate certain aspects of behavior that we've come to expect from groups like the tea party and the far right wing of the Republican party that has somehow managed to avoid becoming the tea party.  Those types of people have certain behavioral patterns and personality features, many of which aren't very attractive.

Words like "sociopath" and "paraonid" get used a lot, and actually I made the mistake - because I'm not a psychologist - of using the phrase "paranoid sociopath" in a blog entry recently and I got called out on it by a friend who *is* a psychologist who told me:  "paranoid" and "sociopath" are intrinsically conflicting things.  A paranoid relies on their sense of other people's feelings to develop their paranoia; a sociopath lacks empathy for other people.  That means (simplifying here) they don't think other people *have* feelings, so it's awful hard for a sociopath to be paranoid.

What we're really talking about is called "cognitive dissonance," and you might hear that a lot, especially if like me you're a communication major, you'll hear that phrase a lot, "cognitive dissonance."  The best way to sum it up is - I've siad this before and just not made the connection in a presentation - it's Orwellian doublethink.  It's the ability to hold as true, two completely conflicting ideas.

One of them, as an example, is - and again, going back to the radical right in this country - you have people insisting "well this is a Christian nation."  "WE LIVE IN A CHRISTIAN NATION, THIS NATION WAS FOUNDED ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES AND WE ARE CHRISTIANS AND WE ARE PROUD OF IT AND IF YOU'RE NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION BUDDY YOU CAN JUST GET THE HELL OUT.  WE ARE A CHRISTIAN NATION!"

Now I'm not a bible thumper, okay?  But I've read a little bit about this "Jesus" guy. 

Jesus was a guy who walked around healing people, feeding the hungry, and comforting the afflicted.

For free. 

And here we are in a "christian nation" filled with his most devout followers who say, "Why the hell should I have to pay for some (welfare queen or fag or dopehead or whatever type of person it is that you don't like)?  WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM TO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE?  WHY SHOULD I HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM TO HAVE A ROOF OVER THEIR HEADS?"

Now...to anybody with a properly functioning mind, these are clearly conflicting philosophies.  They don't match; they don't go together.  You cannot be a "Christian," and be filled with charity and love and hope and no care for material things...and also be a capitalist.  I hate to be that broad about it, but that's essentially what it comes down to, because Christianity has no regard for material wealth.

For some reason, some parts of our society over here on the right don't understand that's a conflict.  

They talk themselves into believing that this is a reconcilable difference, that these things are consistent, and they're not.

So we've covered the issue of paranoia and sociopathic thinking, as it's often called in conversation, among the right.  We've rejected those labels in favor of the more accurate description "cognitive dissonance." In our next video we're going to go deeper into this concept of cognitive dissonance and how it relates to human behavior and the sorts of negative aspects the things we're seeing in the United States.

Thanks for watching, please stop by my blog LowGenius.Net (if you're not watching from the blog) [and also] 40yearoldfreshman.com.  Please feel free to leave comments, agree or disagree, that's up to you, I'm always interested in what people have to say.  Thanks for watching, we'll see you in part two when we talk more about cognitive dissonance.