John Rogers Is a Genius
More ammunition for the defense of the crazification factor:
Some 27 percent of Israelis believe that U.S. President Barack Obama is anti-Semitic, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted this week.Anpther 56 percent questions said they don’t believe politicians who call Obama anti-Semitic or hostile to Israel, or who say he is “striving to topple Netanyahu.”
On the whole, Obama’s popularity may be declining in American public opinion, but a sweeping majority of Israelis think his treatment of this country is friendly and fair.
Just the other day, 27% of Hiram Monseratte’s district decided that despite the fact he was convicted of slashing his significant other, he deserved their vote.
I’m telling you- pay attention to 27%. It is uncanny how often it shows up.
March 19, 2010 9:07 am
Posted in: Excellent Links
41 Comments
41 Responses
beltane - March 19, 2010 | 9:12 am · Link
Am I supposed to be relieved or concerned that out of every four people I see, one of them is bound to be crazy?
Captain Goto - March 19, 2010 | 9:15 am · Link
John Rogers and Dr. Bob Altemeyer: separated at birth?
4tehlulz - March 19, 2010 | 9:16 am · Link
1 out of 4 is low for Israel.
Captain Goto - March 19, 2010 | 9:16 am · Link
@beltane:
I go with “afraid…very afraid.”
comrade scott's agenda of rage - March 19, 2010 | 9:19 am · Link
Nothing new here really. Bush’s support, while yeah it did dip down below 27% toward the end, consistently held at 27%.
This country has always had about a 30% crazy level and that dates back to the Revolution.
What infuriates me are Dem politicians, like my Repup Lite Senator McCaskill, continue to try and woo these voters. They’ll never vote for a Dem.
The Grand Panjandrum - March 19, 2010 | 9:19 am · Link
Interesting. I’d like to see the actual poll and the cross tabs on this one. It might be even more interesting to dig down and look at the data.
BTW, tomorrow marks the 7th anniversary of the beginning of the war that would pay for itself. I will admit that I’m still a little miffed that our troops never got those flowers and candy. Damn ungrateful Iraqis. What did they expect, a cakewalk?
stevie314159 - March 19, 2010 | 9:19 am · Link
I used to assume 15% (that was the number who thought Obama was a Muslim AND listened to a crazy Christian pastor).
I see I misunderestimated.
Maybe “No Quarter” should rename itself “No 27%”.
JGabriel - March 19, 2010 | 9:20 am · Link
@beltane:
Terrified.
.
beltane - March 19, 2010 | 9:21 am · Link
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Yeah, those are the lost souls who voted for Alan Keyes rather than a Democrat. They are unwooable.
ed - March 19, 2010 | 9:25 am · Link
Here’s some of that 27%
To be fair, the penultimate guy has a lot of love.
Ed Drone - March 19, 2010 | 9:26 am · Link
“Some of the people all of the time” seems to be running about 27%, it seems.
Ed
mclaren - March 19, 2010 | 9:36 am · Link
There’s a reason for that 27 percent figure. Check out the website for the National Institute of Mental Health at http://www.nimh.nih.gov.
From “The Numbers Count: Mental Disorders In America at the aforementioned NIMH website.
There you have it. There’s the explanation for your 27 percent figure.
Omnes Omnibus - March 19, 2010 | 9:37 am · Link
@beltane: The crazy is not evenly distributed. Some groups of four are totally nuts; others might be entirely sane.
Lee - March 19, 2010 | 9:38 am · Link
Shouldn’t you rename “Blogs We Monitor And Mock As Needed” to “27%” or “Population samples of the 27%”?
wvng - March 19, 2010 | 9:45 am · Link
Regarding beltanes point, I spent yesterday doing presentations at a WV high school. In one class, there was a small group of teabagger boys who were obsessed in their hate of President Obama. Talked among themselves about him every time they had a chance. And left me shaken to hear kids talking like that. I’ve never heard anything like it – except on Fox and Limbaugh.
Scares me to death.
Steeplejack - March 19, 2010 | 9:52 am · Link
@mclaren:
Perhaps you are joking, but that is bullshit. People with clinical depression would surely be included in that group of people with “diagnosable mental disorders,” but being depressed doesn’t make you automatically bat-shit “vote for Alan Keyes” crazy.
Just because two numbers are similar doesn’t mean they are related.
ria forsyth - March 19, 2010 | 9:57 am · Link
for years my family has called me “crazy” that number 27% or thereabouts accounts for all the bullies in the schoolyards and simple “crazies” that exist in our society. It also accounts for the ratings of Fox they all together watch it
!
artem1s - March 19, 2010 | 10:03 am · Link
@beltane:
the first basic law of stupidity would indicate that it is more…
http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/...../basic.htm
SGEW - March 19, 2010 | 10:04 am · Link
I’d like to point out that “Crazyfication” (with the test sample of Alan Keyes voters as the principal example) does not necessarily correspond to clinical “mental disorders” (which include such things as depression, OCD, and autism). There is a danger here of a massive failure of classification.
To wit: much as I’ve been concerned about the use of “sociopath” to describe, say, Randian “objectivist” philosophy (Ayn Rand herself was probably clinically sociopathic, but not every asshole 27 year old who wants to “go Galt” has a diagnosable “mental disorder.” Dig?), I worry about connecting treatable and preventable mental illnesses with social, cultural, and political trends. [This is not to say that there may be some correlation, but I’d need to see some serious empirical research (those “liberals are smart!” studies simply aren’t enough, thanks).]
“Crazy” here means much the same thing as “retard” does in the “satirical” (or is it “ironic”?), Colbert sense: not as an attack on Down’s syndrome individuals, but as a critique of relatively dull people (e.g., Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, Douglas J. Feith) who do not, technically, have mental disabilities.
BTW: See, also, Kyle’s Law (Kyle: “Yes. I’m saying one-fourth of Americans are retards.” Stan:”Yeah, at least one-fourth.” Kyle: “Let’s take a test sample: There’s four of us, you’re a retard, that’s one-fourth.”)
Also, stevie314159 (above) wins a gold star for “No 27%” Did you know that that site now publishes AGW denial screeds?
Fergus Wooster - March 19, 2010 | 10:14 am · Link
@SGEW: Good points. How about rather than “crazy” we go with this:
A consistent 27% of Americans comprises a proto-fascist rump that, at any given time, would readily vote to fire up the ovens.
TooManyJens - March 19, 2010 | 10:18 am · Link
John Rogers is a genius, but credit for the crazification factor** really should go to Tyrone. Unless of course Tyrone is a fictional personality Rogers made up for his blog posts, in which case nevermind.
** I am so used to seeing the word “crazification” that when my browser flagged it as misspelled, I thought I’d actually gotten it wrong. It didn’t occur to me until I’d retyped it that my spell checker wouldn’t recognize the word.
Captain Goto - March 19, 2010 | 10:20 am · Link
@wvng:
Reminds me of the two IT gurus we had in here, a month or two ago…they were chuckling over some kind of can-you-believe-the-way-Obama-is coddling-terraists thing that was going around the wingnutosphere, as reported on the Fox News feed the one guy had on his handheld.
Depressing.
Shygetz - March 19, 2010 | 10:21 am · Link
@SGEW—gotta call partial bullshit. Objectivism is an attempt to philosophically justify sociopathic urges. Calling Objectivism sociopathic doesn’t mean every college sophomore who calls themselves an Objectivist is a sociopath—they could be mistaken about what the philosophy says, or just not have thought about the implications. Or they could be sociopaths.
El Cid - March 19, 2010 | 10:31 am · Link
Once again, on those Obama approval ratings mentioned (it “dips”)—can we please, please bear in mind that most of Obama’s “dip” comes from THE SOUTH?
You’ve got 72% approval in the Northeast, over 55% in the Midwest and West, and 35% approval ratings in the South.
Why do none of the pundits and analysts not give the slightest sh*t about this unless the story they’re after is that ‘the nation is losing support for Obama’.
****************************
BARACK OBAMA
FAV UNFAV NO OPINION
NORTHEAST72226
SOUTH35605
MIDWEST56386
WEST57367
REST OF USA61327
SGEW - March 19, 2010 | 10:37 am · Link
@Shygetz: First of all, “greed,” “cruelty,” and “selfishness” are not mental disorders. You can be a completely self-centered brick-headed asshole and still be technically free of any cognitive disability, as such are currently defined. Sociopathy, as is currently understood, is a much more specific, discrete, and partially treatable condition.
Secondly, I believe that this is where “sociopathy” (and many cultural concepts of “mental disorders”) and “philosophy” as separate concepts starts to get screwy. Similarly (relevantly?), one could argue that the Catholic church’s theological standards for human sexuality are philosophical justifications for harmful sexual neuroses. But are Catholics, as a group or as individuals, to be categorically labeled as sex offenders? I would hope not.
Maude - March 19, 2010 | 10:49 am · Link
@Steeplejack: I don’t even approve of labeling people. It certainly ups the money factor and dehumanizes.
Redshirt - March 19, 2010 | 10:59 am · Link
I’ve been a big fan of the 80/20 rule for a long time, to wit: 20% of people cause the vast majority of problems that the other 80% has to deal with. Crime, drugs, sex offenders, liars, etc. They’re all in that 20% camp.
So, to tag it to the 27%, perhaps the remaining 7% is just the easily gullible. Or religious – same thing?
sparky - March 19, 2010 | 11:03 am · Link
@SGEW: sociopathy is treatable?
agree with your general take, though i think there is something left unsaid here: while people like to think that politics is a rational endeavor, there is no requirement that political beliefs be rational. consequently, one can be “sane” and hold irrational beliefs, or be irrational and hold “rational” beliefs.
if i were going to be provocative, i would point out that many of these threads are spot on examples. but since i’m not, i shan’t.
the crazification factor means that you can assume that 27% of the voting population will vote irrationally. the job of the political manager is to rationally obtain the irrational vote while not losing the rational vote.
TooManyJens - March 19, 2010 | 11:05 am · Link
@Redshirt:
Come on, I’m an atheist too, but that’s out of line.
Fergus Wooster - March 19, 2010 | 11:06 am · Link
@Redshirt:
In this formulation, maybe the 20% is the Lumpenproletariat, and the 7% represents the most fickle of the Lumpenbourgeoise?
When things get frisky, they combine to form the Proto-Fascist Rump.
Armchair sociology. I has it.
some guy - March 19, 2010 | 11:17 am · Link
@wvng:
I have several co-workers who are like this. They listen to talk radio during work and are absolutely obsessed with Obama and the Democratic party and they will repeat whatever the Beck/Rush/Hannity outrage-of-the-day is to anyone and everyone who passes by their desks. It’s annoying because I have to hear the same BS day after day (“hey, it’s snowing outside, so much for Al Gore’s global warming hoax”), but their single-mindedness also kind of creepy.
And it didn’t start with Obama’s election, either. They were doing this while Bush was president, too. I swear, they cared waaay more about whatever Michael Moore and Ward Churchill and Cindy Sheehan were saying on any given day than any liberals I knew.
You know, as much as I disliked the Bush administration, I didn’t let my outrage consume me to the point where it’s all I ever thought about or talked about with anyone and everyone within earshot.
Sometimes I feel like going all Shatner on their asses: “GET A LIFE!”
Tonybrown74 - March 19, 2010 | 11:27 am · Link
Tristero over at Digby used to say the same thing re: Bush dead-enders (the percentage may not be exact, but I think it was around 24-27%).
Roughly 1/4 of this nation (and apparently elsewhere) is INSANE!
MaximusNYC - March 19, 2010 | 11:36 am · Link
@Fergus Wooster: I came across a nice word yesterday (on a conservative website, surprisingly): lumpenconservatariat.
Apparently some more intelligent cons use it to contemptuously describe the most foaming-at-the-mouth Beck-watching types.
SGEW - March 19, 2010 | 11:43 am · Link
@sparky: Hmm. Let’s say “mitigable.”
Colette - March 19, 2010 | 11:43 am · Link
27 is the new 42.
Fergus Wooster - March 19, 2010 | 12:00 pm · Link
@MaximusNYC: Awesome. Now added to my personal lexicon. Thanks!
Although the well-to-do, frothing teabaggers already meet the textbook definition of Lumpenbourgeoise. They would find perfect counterparts in any Latin American banana republic.
MaximusNYC - March 19, 2010 | 12:19 pm · Link
@Fergus Wooster: Lumpenbourgeoisie is certainly a useful term. I feel like it probably applies to many of the Chamber of Commerce GOPers.
I’d say the lumpenconservatariat are people further down the socioeconomic scale—less prosperous and less educated, thus more alienated, thus more fanatical.
Fergus Wooster - March 19, 2010 | 12:31 pm · Link
@MaximusNYC: Definitely, the Lumpenconservatariat finds its members among the more white, religious Lumpenproles.
I think Marxist rhetoric is due for a comeback.
Kevin Phillips Bong - March 19, 2010 | 1:03 pm · Link
@Redshirt: In my last job where customer service played a sizable role, 20 percent of my customers caused 80 percent of the problems. Certainly possible there’s a seven percent rounding error.
Darkrose - March 19, 2010 | 3:49 pm · Link
All other considerations aside: yes, John Rogers is a genius. I adore that man, and I’m deeply saddened that I can’t go to Portland this weekend.
BruinKid - March 19, 2010 | 6:03 pm · Link
You know who else uses 27 a lot? “Weird Al” Yankovic. In several songs, he throws out the number 27. It’s also seen in several of his music videos.
Why?
Because he says, “it’s just a funny number”.