[MD] Tea Bagging

[david buchanan]

Howdy MOQers:

As an antidote to the political tone-deafness and the confusion over who should be labeled what, I thought it would be good to get specific. Thanks to a researcher named Altemeyer, we can discuss the particular attitudes and positions held by right-wingers. It seems quite obvious to me that his descriptions fit the present moment quite neatly and it's not a very flattering portrait of the right. As you'll see in the quoted section that follows, right-wing authoritarians tend to exhibit cognitive errors and symptoms of faulty reasoning. They are more likely to make incorrect inferences from evidence and to hold contradictory ideas. They are more likely to uncritically accept insufficient evidence if it supports their beliefs, less likely to acknowledge their own limitations,  generally lack an openness to experience. Authoritarian politicians are more likely to be in the Republican Party in the United States. They generally have a conservative economic philosophy, are highly nationalistic, oppose abortion, support capital punishment, oppose gun control legislation, and do not value social equality, have pro-capitalist attitudes, favor religious orthodoxy and they tend to accept covert governmental activities such as illegal wiretaps. They are more willing to suspend constitutional guarantees of liberty such as the Bill of Rights and they tend to be ethnocentric and prejudiced against racial and ethnic minorities, and homosexuals. All of those claims are Altemeyer's, which are based on research. Here is the quote in full (I don't want to spoil the surprise but notice how they all die in the end):

According to research by Altemeyer, right-wing authoritarians tend to exhibit cognitive errors and symptoms of faulty reasoning. Specifically, they are more likely to make incorrect inferences from evidence and to hold contradictory ideas that result from compartmentalized thinking. They are also more likely to uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs, and they are less likely to acknowledge their own limitations. Nevertheless, there is no connection between authoritarianism and either low or high intelligence. In terms of the five factor model of personality, authoritarians generally score lower on openness to experience and slightly higher on conscientiousness.

Altemeyer suggested that authoritarian politicians are more likely to be in the Conservative or Reform party in Canada, or the Republican Party in the United States. They generally have a conservative economic philosophy, are highly nationalistic, oppose abortion, support capital punishment, oppose gun control legislation, and do not value social equality. The RWA scale reliably correlates with political party affiliation, reactions to Watergate, pro-capitalist attitudes, religious orthodoxy, and acceptance of covert governmental activities such as illegal wiretaps. Although authoritarianism is correlated with conservative political ideology, not all authoritarians are conservative, and not all conservatives are authoritarian. It is also worth noting that many authoritarians have no interest in politics.

Authoritarians are generally more favorable to punishment and control than personal freedom and diversity. For example, they are more willing to suspend constitutional guarantees of liberty such as the Bill of Rights. They are more likely to advocate strict, punitive sentences for criminals, and they report that they obtain personal satisfaction from punishing such people. They tend to be ethnocentric and prejudiced against racial and ethnic minorities, and homosexuals.

In roleplaying situations, authoritarians tend to seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive instead of cooperative. In a study by Altemeyer, 68 authoritarians played a three hour simulation of the Earth's future entitled the Global change game. Unlike a comparison game played by individuals with low RWA scores, which resulted in world peace and widespread international cooperation, the simulation by authoritarians became highly militarized and eventually entered the stage of nuclear war. By the end of the high RWA game, the entire population of the earth was declared dead.