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BARACK & THE OSCARS

Posted by dwlievert 10 years, 2 months ago to Government
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Recent dialogue surrounding our President has begun to include whether or not he is a "patriot." There has now arisen the questioning of where his loyalties lie - i.e., what are his true values when it comes to America and her "ideals."

One of Aristotle's insightful remarks was relevant in this regard, He postulated, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

Aristotle's observation serves to remind us that one's actual values are represented by, whatever protestations or professions might be claimed to the contrary, what one actually does as opposed to what they might say. What our President consistently does is obvious. What he says however, is tirelessly peculiar.

It is clear from past associations and behavior, what little of them to which we have become privy, our current President has brought to American politics a unique perspective - not just the obvious one for which the media is so incessant to remind us. I would term it a perspective of western values in general - and America's in particular, brought to us from one of its victims - one of the endless "Subjects" of western colonialism.

Of course his close associations with Reverend Wright, the Ayers, and Sharpton aside, his compelling rhetoric, at least on the surface, is sufficiently incoherent that one can only circumstantially infer such things - particularly when you actually try to listen and understand him.

Our President reminds me not just of Aristotle's timeless observation, but of another observation, one that at least in its brief history, seems to be describing something that is potentially equally timeless. It is called the Dunning-Kruger effect, in honor of its two Cornell University psychology professors, Dr. David Dunning and Dr. Justin Kruger.

Broadly speaking, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is defined as "a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a meta-cognitive inability to recognize their [own] ineptitude."

Two examples of this psychological affliction that I found cited on the internet was, "If I was just intelligent, I'd be okay. But I am fiercely intelligent, which most people find very threatening." - Actress Sharon Stone. And, "People the world over recognize me as a great spiritual leader." - Actor Steven Seagal.

Now I won't deny that I am a fan of the "early" Segal and Stone is certainly a fine actress. But seriously, "fiercely?" "Leader?"

That our President has firmly established himself as our chief narcissist is no longer in dispute. However, his recent rationalizations, which some are calling unpatriotic, surrounding the on-going 1200+ years of madness in Chaostan (Richard “Uncle Eric” Maybury’s term for the area stretching N/S from the Arctic to Indian Oceans and E/W from Eastern Europe to the Pacific) represents my final psychological “straw.” I cannot turn on the TV without a now ever-present fear that I will see and hear his incoherence.

However, I will have said TV "ON" tonight. It is "Oscar Night." The parade of left-leaning pretentiousness on display will be especially instructive tonight because of one of the movies nominated. I look forward to how American Sniper and its creative ensemble, led by Clint, will be “handled.”

In any case I wish to offer a new category for nominations. It would be along the lines of “best self-delusion by a highly-acclaimed star who never possessed an original thought in their life.”

And the Oscar goes to………….


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