Glenn Greenwald:Thomas Sowell offers superb Exhibit of the Right-wing Mind

[laststeamtrain]

Thomas Sowell offers superb Exhibit of the Right-wing Mind

(updated below)

Thomas Sowell, from his Townhall column today:

" We all believe that people are innocent until proven guilty. Some on the left believe that they are innocent even after being proven guilty."

<snip>

Neither Thomas Sowell nor this specific episode, standing alone, is particularly significant, but I cannot help being endlessly amazed by the capacity of right-wing authoritarians so blatantly to hold and espouse completely contradictory thoughts at once without realizing they are doing it. This is yet more evidence that Psychology Professor Bob Altemeyer, in his book The Authoritarians (.pdf), has provided the definitive account of the psychological impulses driving right-wing followers:

"A high right-wing authoritarian can have all sorts of illogical, self-contradictory and widely refuted ideas rattling around in various boxes in his brain, and never notice it. . . .

"Research reveals that authoritarian followers drive through life under the influence of impaired thinking a lot more than most people do, exhibiting sloppy reasoning, highly compartmentalized beliefs, double standards, hypocrisy, self-blindness, a profound ethnocentrism, and -- to top it all off -- a ferocious dogmatism that makes it unlikely anyone could ever change their minds with evidence or logic."

<snip>

When Sowell went to write the sentence "some on the left believe that are innocent even after being proven guilty," a basically functioning brain should have alerted him to the fact that he and his ideological comrades constantly do exactly that, and did precisely that all year long with regard to the conviction of Lewis Libby. Somehow, though, that function fails, and Sowell -- without realizing he is doing so -- accuses the "left" of doing what he himself and his political movement just did in the most prominent criminal case of the year. That is but a vivid illustration of how warped and removed from basic logic is the "reasoning" of this political movement.

<more>

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/03/sowell/index.html?source=rss&aim=greenwald

[Cooley Hurd]

1. This is why I'm a liberal Democrat...

I have zero tolerance for hypocrisy - I'm just wired that way, I guess - and to be a Republican in today's political climate means one has to be completely oblivious to the truth because, as Stephen Colbert said, "truth has a liberal bias."

[Jim__]

2. And yet the right constantly insists that they follow reason.

Great catch by Glenn Greenwald pointing out some of the delusions of the right.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. GG is one of the best out there today...

:thumbsup:

[NI4NI]

4. I think Greenwald is brilliant

and so is his new book Tragic Legacy.
I couldn't put it down.

[pretzel4gore]

5. this is self serving criminal....

punks like sowel hide behind their status as scholars or thinkers whatever when actual crimes are being committed against the commons within sight of them- they are activist members of the criminal gangs, indeed they receive among the highest shares of the stolen proceeds!