Friday, November 30, 2007

MENTAL HEALTH AND THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

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A Republican vision of mental health

Today on NPR's "Left, Right & Center," the right-wing propaganda agent stated that he had read a survey claiming Republicans have better mental health than Democrats or independents. When I got home I googled around and found the new Gallup Poll he must have been referencing. In it, Republicans self diagnose themselves as being in excellent health. That would, of course include Republicans who have recently come to the public's attention claiming for example that they were only in public toilets to clean up some messy toilet paper (Idaho Senator Larry Craig) or escape from bad weather or scary African-Americans (Florida Rep. Bob Allen) or because they like the sounds in public men's rooms (former GOP candidate for the Louisiana state senate, Joey DiFatta. Each claimed he was perfectly balanced-- and straight. And that doesn't even address Republicans like child predator Mark Foley (who claimed he was mentally healthy after he was apprehended drunk breaking into the boys dorm in the congressional page program) or, more recently, Washington State Republican state Rep Richard Curtis (whose mental stability is so fragile that he sponsored viciously homophobic legislation to prevent gay men and women from employment while he was wearing women's silk panties and planning his next all-nighter of anonymous, drug-fuled sex). Yes, why would any of these Republicans possibly consider himself in anything but the most tip top mental health?

And what about Ron Paul? Millions of Republicans admire or even revere him. A few nights ago he stood on a stage with the rest of the pathetic pygmies™ ranting and raving about a superhighway from Mexico to Canada that will lead to the end of our national sovereignty. The rest of them were so busy trying to outdo each other on how bigoted and xenophobic they are that not one of them bothered to remark on Paul's apparent lunacy. I mean the man is not just one of the pygmies™; he's been a Republican member of Congress or over 10 years.
A border-spanning "NAFTA highway" now on the drawing board, Paul said, would link the U.S., Mexico and Canada, worsening illegal immigration and threatening American independence. "Our national sovereignty is under threat," Paul warned.

Federal and state highway and trade officials and transportation consultants reacted Thursday with befuddlement and amusement. The fearsome secret international highway project Paul described does not exist, they said.

"There is no such superhighway like the one he's talking about," said Ian Grossman, a spokesman with the Federal Highway Administration. "It doesn't exist, in plans or anywhere else."

"It's complete fiction," said Tiffany Melvin, executive director of NASCO, a consortium of transportation agencies and business interests caught in the cross hairs of anti-highway activists. "This is the work of fringe groups that have wrapped a couple of separate projects together into one big paranoid fantasy."

A loose confederation of conservative Internet bloggers and some right-wing groups, among them the John Birch Society, has seized on a burst of activity in federal highway projects in recent years as evidence that the Bush administration is pushing toward a European Union-style government for North America.

..."The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway," Paul wrote to his constituents in October 2006, "but an integrated North American Union -- complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union."

During the Wednesday debate, Paul also linked the purported NAFTA highway to his concerns about the Trilateral Commission -- an enduring bugaboo of conspiracy theorists -- and the World Trade Organization's "control [of ] our drug industry, our nutritional products." Paul added: "I don't like big government in Washington, so I don't like this trend toward international government."

Jesse Benton, Paul's campaign spokesman, said Thursday that Paul believed that the threat of a NAFTA highway was real. "Dr. Paul is not alone in thinking this is a substantial compromise of federal sovereignty," Benton said. "There's a strong belief by a lot of people that [the highway] would run clear up through Canada."

Benton noted that Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. (R-Va.) had introduced a resolution expressing opposition to a NAFTA superhighway. It is signed by 42 congressmen, including Paul and two of his Republican presidential rivals, Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado.

Virgil Goode, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul... now what have these 4 gentlemen have in common besides being bigoted loons? Well I bet they all fit in among the majority of Republicans who claim to be in "excellent" mental health.

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10 Comments:

At 7:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Who were the other 38?
Http://www.spp.gov
http://www.nascocorridor.com/
http://www.logisticstoday.com/displayStory.asp?sNO=6515
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0206vogel.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_Prosperity_Partnership_of_North_America

 
At 2:58 AM, Blogger mijeske said...

Did they miss this study which concludes that political conservatism is a mental defect?

http://www.wam.umd.edu/~hannahk/bulletin.pdf

If you ask a person with a mental defect if they are mentally healthy, will their answer be reliable? I think not.

 
At 8:31 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The term "Super Highway" started out as a metaphor for an unpopular program that would allow Mexican trucks and drivers to cross the border instead of off loading them for transport by American trucks and drivers. Naturally the Teamsters are perfectly happy with the off loading as they are fearful of outsourcing their own jobs in their own country. Unfortunately, the term has been picked up by people with an entirely different agenda than the original intention and these are the people trying to confuse the metaphor with reality. Metaphorically, there is a super highway. It crisscrosses the United States and is being used by truckers, both independant and union to deliver our goods and services. The bulk of them are American Teamsters.

 
At 7:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think these responses pretty much confirm Gallup's findings.

 
At 11:55 PM, Blogger Nishasona said...

Moderate Republicans have been silenced by party leadership who has pandered to the far right wing. The bullyboy braying of talk radio hosts and self-righteous right-wingers have cowed Republican candidates into acting against their political instincts while the base of the party has been shrinking and shrinking. While expounding the “big tent” theory of party building, leaders of the party were really constructing an outhouse.

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Aniecruz

Idaho Drug Treatment

 
At 4:19 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

I think moderate Republicans are realizing that the faction of the party that is anti-choice - we've said, well, they're going to help us get our candidates elected, but they're not going to control our issues and the platform, we see that they've increasingly gained control of the agenda, and the agenda's so far gone from what it should be and the core Republican values
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oliviaharis

Louisiana Drug Treatment

 
At 4:53 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Republicans call on the entire Legislature to pass measures that will make it easier for the Governor and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to develop temporary housing at underutilized state facilities, jails and community correctional facilities.
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oliviaharis
California Drug Addiction

 
At 4:10 AM, Blogger harry said...

Mental health is a term used to describe either a level of cognitive or emotional wellbeing or an absence of a mental disorder.
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Harry
California Alcohol Addiction Treatment

 
At 2:52 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

The problem facing poorer countries is to use limited resources to establish a range of strategies and actual service models that can extend mental health services most effectively," writes Cohen. "It's almost like making something out of nothing.
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Pamban23

Louisiana Alcohol Addiction Treatment

 
At 3:29 AM, Blogger bhuvana said...

HI,
The Republican party's vision on mental health is very nice.Since they taken effort in curing the mentally disorder peoples.It works well.
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bhuvana

louisiana drug rehab

 

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