XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, can.politics, alt.politics.liberalism
XPost: alt.politics.democrats, alt.politics.usa.republican
The idea of American exceptionalism has been embedded in our collective DNA for generations. It is the faith-based belief that, as Ronald Reagan put it, America is a "shining city on a hill."
Do modern liberals believe that?
I almost never try to get into the other side's head or ascribe ill motives to those on the left. They are, I've always believed, misguided, not malign.
But I'm having second thoughts after listening to Barack Obama's defense of communism/socialism when he was in Argentina. He advised young people to get behind "what works" economically as if there is some deep mystery here.
Obama didn't misspeak. The modern left in America really has come to believe that communism, socialism, Marxism and totalitarianism or other terms for the monopolization of power into the hands of a ruling elite are superior to free- market capitalism.
The president of the United States is supposed to be the global spokesman for free enterprise. But, instead of traveling to Cuba to point out to the world the decades of stagnation, deprivation and dehumanization at the hands of the Castros, and instead of using this moment in history to showcase the triumph of capitalism 90 miles away, Obama praises Cuba's health care and education systems.
He might as well have been praising Mussolini for making the trains run on time. Even more unbelievable: The media applauded.
How far the Democratic Party has fallen. Can anyone imagine Obama, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders having the gumption or wisdom to tell Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall"?
It wasn't so long ago that leading Democrats JFK, Harry Truman and even the AFL CIO were staunch enemies of communism. Today, there is no place for such beliefs within the progressive Democratic Party. If it involves ceding power to the state, the left is all for it as evidenced by the rise of Bernie Sanders.
But for every action, there is a reaction, and the left's lunacy has given momentum to the tumultuous uprising on the right this year. Millions of voters who support Donald Trump want our government to put America first and focus on our own mounting problems at home, then worry about Europe, Israel, the melting ice caps, AIDS in Africa and so on. If your house is burning down, you put out that fire and save your own children trapped on the second floor, before you go down the street and put the fire out at your neighbors' house.
Here's just one observational data point that, admittedly, is anecdotal but speaks volumes about the left-right divide in America. At a typical Donald Trump or Ted Cruz rally, you will see American flags waving everywhere. These are patriotic gatherings. At Sanders events, you will see some flags, but not many because if you are a leftist, it's not cool to love America. What is much cooler is wearing a Che Guevera T-shirt.
At a Republican rally, you typically meet many veterans who served our country with honor and valor. Some who protest at Trump rallies detest those who are wearing military uniforms and call them fascists and give the Nazi salute. I've seen it happen. I want to grab these brats and shout at them like Jack Nicholson did in "A Few Good Men": "I would rather you just said 'thank you' and went on your way."
Trump voters see America losing both the economic and cultural wars vital to national survival. We have a $19 trillion national debt that has doubled in the past decade. We have wages flat or falling for most Americans. We have a political class that is actively trying to destroy whole industries coal production, oil and gas, community banks and so many others.
We have a president (along with the intellectual class) pushing a radical climate change agenda that will cost the middle class millions of jobs, but won't change the global temperature by a hundredth of a degree. Trade deals seem to be drafted to benefit foreign workers and businesses over our own. America pays far more than its share for programs like the United Nations and NATO. Our public schools put teachers first, not kids, and they often don't adequately educate.
We have courts overturning the will of the people in state after state on issues such as gay marriage. We have speech police. We have illegal immigrants who work here and live here and then wave the Mexican flag at rallies, as if to be intentionally offensive. (And I'm in favor of immigration.) Then they wonder why Americans want a wall.
We have the TSA searching the underwear of infants but letting certain adults pass through without inspection because we wouldn't want to be accused of profiling. We have a Justice Department thinking about prosecuting people for questioning the climate change "consensus."
This is the same crowd that seems to prefer the economic systems in Sweden and Greece and Cuba over America's. They preach human rights, but they don't seem to understand that economic freedom is a core human right.
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White Liberals More Likely To Have A Mental Health Condition
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/22/white-liberals-more-likely- have-mental-health-cond/
Apr 22, 2021 - Sixty-two percent of Whites who classify themselves as "very liberal" or "liberal" have been told by a doctor they have a mental health condition, as compared to 26% of conservatives and...
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White Liberals More Likely to Have Mental Health Problems... - Newsmax
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/white-liberals-mental-health- study/2021/04/20/id/1018293/
The Pew Study, Which The Washington Free Beacon notes was published last year but only gained attention in a recent article, showed that white liberals of all ages were more likely to be diagnosed with a mental health condition than moderates or conservatives, with the disparity particularly pronounced among those aged 18-29, according to evie...
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Study: Young White Liberals More Likely to Have Mental Health Problems
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/04/22/study-young-white-liberals- more-likely-to-have-mental-health-problems/
Apr 22, 2021 - When sex and age were factors, 56.3 percent of white women between the ages of 18 and 29 and who labeled themselves as "liberal," said they had been given a mental health diagnosis, compared to 27.3 percent of conservatives in the same categories and 28.4 percent of moderates:
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62% of "liberal" or very "liberal" whites have a mental health condition
https://www.independentsentinel.com/62-of-liberal-or-very-liberal-whites-have- a-mental-health-condition/
According to a Pew Research Center survey, 62% percent of Whites who classify themselves as "very liberal" or "liberal" has been told by a doctor they have a mental health condition. Only 26% of conservatives and 20% of moderates have been told they have such a condition, the study found.
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Pew Study: White Liberals Disproportionately Suffer From Mental Illness...
https://wibc.com/108211/pew-study-white-liberals-disproportionately-suffer- from-mental-illness/
White women, ages 18-29, who identified as liberal were given a mental health diagnosis from medical professionals at a rate of 56.3%, as compared to 28.4% in moderates and 27.3% in conservatives. Zach Goldberg, a Ph.D. candidate in political science, consolidated the study's info in a set of visuals and posted them to a thread on Twitter.
SCIENCE: White Libs More Likely To Have Mental Health Problems
https://freebeacon.com/politics/white-libs-mental-health/
Within this demographic, 34 percent of liberals reported having mental health problems, compared with 22 percent of moderates and 16 percent of conservatives. Zach Goldberg, the doctoral...
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White Liberals Twice as Likely to be Diagnosed with Psychological Problems
https://www.hennessysview.com/p/psychologic-disorders-white-liberals
Nearly 1 in 2 (45.9%) of white liberals have been diagnosed with mental health disorders. White liberals of all ages are more than twice as likely as conservatives of any age to suffer from mental health disorders. White liberals are almost twice as likely as non-white liberals to be diagnosed with mental health problems.
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6 Reasons Why Liberalism IS A Mental Disorder (LOL) - The Political Insider
https://thepoliticalinsider.com/6-reasons-why-liberalism-can-be-considered-a- mental-disorder/
In 2005, Michael Savage famously wrote a book titled, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, the subject of which is self-explanatory. Additionally, Dr. Lyle Rossiter, a board-certified clinical psychologist, wrote a book in which he diagnosed the ideology of the left as a tangible mental illness.
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Personality Traits, Mental Illness, and Ideology
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/unique-everybody- else/202103/personality-traits-mental-illness-and-ideology
specifically, surveys on the " big five " traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience have found that people identifying as politically...
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Study claims over 50% of liberal women under 30 have mental health...
https://theliberal.ie/study-claims-over-50-of-liberal-women-under-30-have- mental-health-issues-men-and-women-with-liberal-views-more-likely-to-be- mentally-unwell/
Study claims over 50% of liberal women under 30 have mental health issues, men and women with liberal views more likely to be mentally unwell April 24, 2021 - 12:01 Gerard Clarke Irish News
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