I see it as a level of development in which people have limited ability for self reflection and are heavily projecting their experiences on others. I see that many of the supporters of McCain/Palin are trying to protect certain old belief systems and have an innate need to wrap reality around these beliefs so that their world does not implode. To see what we see would be so disorienting for them they will compromise their greater nature to preserve their belief systems.

On another note it just struck me the parallel of this in the Star Wars story and the way that Aniken gets seduced by his desire to prevent his love's death...(the death of a belief) and becomes completly divorced from reality for some time...not seeing what he is becoming...or willing to pay the price to hold onto that love(belief).

It may not be worth much but it does help me understand why people are remotely considering voting for McCain/Palin... aside from some of the lust fantasies of some men (and maybe some women, I couldn't say...) of having a sexy tart running around the white house needing your help...doing it all for you... The way Pat Buchanan drools over Palin is just sad to see.

I appreciate your post as I have thought of posting some of my thought on this but wasn't sure they would be interesting to anyone else.

Excellent blog. I agree entirely. Lack of empathy, not putting yourself in the shoes of another, makes a conscience impossible. As for myself, I prefer the word sociopathy. But it's exactly the same meaning in terms of diagnosis. And the technical diagnostic term is Anti-social Personality Disorder. I provide these terms, not to quibble in any way with the post, but simply to alert readers- so that whenever you see any one of these terms, you realize that they refer the same pathology: Someone who does not view others as persons, as sacred and separate and deserving of respect, consideration, equality, justice, and so on. Someone who engages in anti-social behavior.

They've even found neurons in our brain that relate to this. "Mirror neurons," which enable us to mentally rehearse the physical movements and feelings of others as if we were doing them ourselves. Sociopaths are apparently deficient on a neural level. It's a fascinating topic and a new and interesting area of research.

Again, thanks for the timely post. I salute you.

I'm of the opinion that conservatism -at least in it's present form- is a form of mental disease.

If you list the human relationship characteristics of human beings (such as, love, hate, anger, deception, integrity, humility, charity, selfishness, tolerance, insularity, etc.). Then, separate that list by which most characterize conservatives and liberals, today.

What I get is a picture split unevenly between darkness and light, between the constructive and the destructive. Perhaps, this the natural balance of Yin and Yang human psychological energies as exemplified via a political system. If so, I'd say that balance is way off center.

Palin is psychopathic - she seems to have no conscience, no moral qualms of any kind. She will say exactly what her minders tell her to - because it suits her to do so. She's very dangerous, even more so than McCain.

McCain is no psychopath. You can see what suppressing his conscience has done to the man - in his anger, and that lost, frightened look in his eyes. He has made a pact with the devil for the promise of power. And like Faust, it's destroying him.

I see Palin as someone who is dangerously reckless, certainly sociopathic. She has apparently indoctrinated herself to believe in her own infallibility and god-given purpose. So nothing she does can be wrong - just like some other people we have encountered over the past 8 years.

However, what I also find in her is an almost innocent zeal - the discovery of her power, as infants, toddlers, and later, teenagers, explore the limits of power. She is punch drunk after the debate, where she was "adequate" in some people's eyes - the only standard she had to meet. Now she's empowered to go on the attack, and with all the lack of restraint of the newly empowered, she will wreak all kinds of havoc, a pit bull in the china shop, so to speak.

What is frightening is that she also has a weird charisma, which I think is stronger than Bush's and certainly far stronger than McCain's. Likely stronger, even, than Obama's when he's not doing one of his speeches.

Hitler had it, too. I didn't see him in person, of course, but I had a friend who did. He was a member of the Dutch Resistance and was captured, along with other members of his group. They were taken to Germany, tortured and forced to work as slaves. At one huge rally, they were paraded out in front of the crowd and placed in front, examples of Nazi superiority.

My friend told me that listening to Hitler speak (and he could understand German), he was moved. He hated everything the Nazis stood for, but he was moved. He told me, "I almost stood up and Sig Heil'd." I never thought about Hitler and charisma in the same sentence before that moment, but I have thought of it often since then.

And, drunk with power, graced with a scary sort of appeal, Palin scares the crap out of me. She needs to be reigned in, and McCain must stop his scorched earth policy, get real, and accept that he can lose gracefully or he can poison the well. What does he really want to be remembered for? It's time he asked himself that question.