Toxic Ideology: Progressives Are Less Happy, Sane Than Conservatives

Study finds leftists aren’t quite the happy warriors they like to portray themselves as. 

By Graham J Noble Jan 2, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

It is often said in conservative circles that liberalism is a mental disorder. That’s not really accurate, though, and it’s a result of many people continuing to conflate liberalism with progressivism or socialism. In truth, the two latter ideologies bear almost no resemblance to classical liberalism. Still, studies have found correlations between political views and state of mind. Progressives, on the whole, are less happy than conservatives. Harvard professor Arthur Brooks recently discussed his latest findings on the subject, which show that not only are conservatives collectively happier than progressives, but the latter are more prone to mental health challenges.

It should be noted, as any statistician will confirm, that correlation does not mean causation. A connection between two data sets is not proof that one set has directly affected the other. But we are dealing with human beings and emotions, here, and not just numerical variables. For anyone passionate about their political and cultural values, psychological well-being is surely not an unrelated issue.

Happy Warriors and Haters

Brooks sat for an episode of The Genius Life podcast in September, discussing the state of “happiness” in America today. The study of happiness is, for Brooks, a specialty that he’s been pursuing for years. Indeed, around ten years ago, the professor wrote in The New York Times that, when political identification is factored into the study of happiness, conservative women were the most blissful demographic and liberal men the least content with their lives. Brooks mostly used the label “liberal” but also acknowledged the shift to progressivism among those on the political left.

The distinction should be considered significant. There’s really nothing in classical liberal philosophy that might evoke unhappiness or mental disorders. But progressives, in attempting to rationalize and justify their worldview, must deal with a host of contradictions, hypocrisies, and rejections of traditional values. Perhaps, above all, they feel the need to commit to the practices of dehumanizing – and disassociating themselves from – anyone who does not share their beliefs. Essentially, unbridled hatred for dissenters has unfortunately become a core tenet for modern progressives. It can’t be easy to feel happy and maintain perspective when so much of one’s time and energy is spent on despising everyone who thinks differently from you.

Spend some time perusing the posts on Bluesky, the social media platform now favored by progressives. The fanatical commitment to hating their political opponents is so pervasive – and often expressed in the most extreme terms – that it’s a wonder anyone active on the political left could be either sane or happy.

Brooks says that “liberal” women (and, again, one should probably read that as progressive women) have now sunk lower than their male counterparts on the mental and emotional health scale. Back when Brooks wrote his piece for The Times a decade ago, 40% of conservative women felt very happy – just a bit happier than conservative men and considerably more cheerful than liberal women. Meanwhile, only around one-fifth of liberal men considered themselves very happy.

Troublingly, the professor observed, “New data show that white liberal women under 30 have almost a six in 10 chance of having been diagnosed with a mental illness in America today.”

Progressives Reject the Keys to Happiness

In his years of research into what he terms “the art and science of happiness,” Brooks has discovered what seems to be the “big four” founding dynamics of happiness: faith, family, friends, and purpose – or “work that serves,” as he put it during the podcast. Faith, Brooks pointed out, doesn’t have to be religious devotion but “doing something that makes the universe big and you little.”

As host Max Lugavere observed, these seem to be the values embraced by conservatives. More pertinent is that they are all values categorically rejected by progressives. While it isn’t difficult to find moderate Democrats who consider themselves either religious or spiritual, progressives scoff at the notion of a God or higher power in some other form. For them, the government is the Alpha and the Omega, supposedly providing everything we need and guiding every aspect of our lives. Interestingly, this idea forms the very foundation of fascist doctrine – a system progressives claim to oppose. That’s one of those many contradictions with which progressivism constantly wrestles.

Family is also rejected. The institution of marriage is trivialized, abortion for any reason – or no reason at all – celebrated, and even the disowning of family members who hold opposing viewpoints is now encouraged on the extreme left. Progressive politicians, along with healthcare and education officials, sneer at the concept of parental rights, seemingly determined to promote and enforce the idea that children are, from birth, essentially wards of the state.

Friends, too, must be chosen based on ideological kinship. As for purpose or fulfillment through work, progressives, much like their socialist cousins, see employment as oppression or even a form of slavery. The one and only purpose they appear to revere is a battle for control over their fellow human beings.

Couple all this with bizarre and confusing notions of “gender fluidity,” the destruction of traditional community life, and the mindset that vilifies the idea of citizens defending themselves or others from physical assault. It‘s little wonder progressives are unhappy when everything that they or anyone else does or says must be measured against an unbendable standard of ideological purity. If the standard isn’t met, the thing said or done must be raged against, ridiculed, vilified, and ultimately suppressed or destroyed – along with the person responsible for the said words or actions.

Such a philosophy requires a tremendous amount of negative energy. So much, in fact, that there can’t be very much room left for happiness.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Graham J Noble Chief Political Correspondent & Satirist

'Psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies': Study blows lid off leftists

They want to overthrow hierarchies and have the government censor citizens 

  By Bob Unruh May 28, 2023 

Somehow the results of a new study might not surprise conservatives across America. After Jan. 6 vandals are sent to prison for years while Black Lives Matter rioters who burned city centers are let off. After parents at school-board meetings are called "domestic terrorists" while those pushing offensive gender ideologies are protected. After President Trump is hounded for his storage of presidential documents, and evidence possibly showing bribes to Joe Biden is hidden.  A report in Daily Wire cites a study from Current Psychology that explains, "Left-wing extremism and aggression are linked to psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies."  The report said the study showed that those who have those traits exhibit an affinity for displaying left-wing aggression............To Read More...

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Caused Massive Mental Illness on the Left

Rachel Alexander  |  May 29, 2023

We’ve all noticed it; there has been a distinct rise in online vitriol and mental illness from the left over the last few years, not just online but also making headlines for outrageous behavior in public and in their daily lives. Studies have shown that the COVID-19 lockdowns caused a sharp increase in mental health problems, and since the left locked down the hardest, it makes sense it affected them the worst. 

Even for those on the left who didn’t live in heavily locked down areas, their paranoia made them take their own steps to isolate themselves from society. We all know the families who disappeared; they stopped going to church, the gym, and other social activities, refused to let their children participate in sports or hang out with other children due to the brainwashing, which caused a disturbingly sad increase in mental illness among children...........To Read More....

A new study just revealed why left-wing activists are so vindictive and violent

By Political Patriot This Appeared Here 

The radical Left would love to completely tear apart the United States. They are constantly pushing their woke insanity on the American people. But a new study just revealed why left-wing activists are so vindictive and violent.  Researchers coin new term to describe what drives radical leftists.

Conservatives have long said that people on the far-Left don’t have any morals or logic behind their ideology. According to a new study, this is because left-wing extremists tend to display psychopathic characteristics and narcissism.

The study was published on Current Psychology, which is “an international forum of rapid dissemination of peer-reviewed research at the cutting edge of psychology.” The study resulted in a new term for the phenomenon of left-wing authoritarians with narcissistic tendencies, “dark-ego-vehicle principle.”

The principle explains that “individuals with dark personalities—such as high narcissistic and psychopathic traits—are attracted to certain forms of political and social activism which they can use as a vehicle to satisfy their own ego-focused needs instead of actually aiming at social justice and equality.”

In other words, their altruism is another way to achieve self-aggrandizement.  Minority groups should be wary of “narcissistic enemies” who seek to exploit their movements.  

It explains that these “dark-ego” people are attracted to left-wing activism because it gives them “opportunities for positive self-presentation and displays of moral superiority, to gain social status, to dominate others, and to engage in social conflicts and aggression to satisfy their need for thrill seeking.”

The study also concluded that most of the people who fall into this category are virtue signaling and do not actually put any of their arguments into practice. The researchers said that social justice warriors are just using the cause to push for radical changes to society.

The authors warned certain minority groups that they should be “aware of the narcissistic enemies from within their activist movement, as these individuals could hijack the cause thereby reducing the success of the activism in many ways.” 

They went on to warn that these people don’t just exist at the ground level of activist movements.  These groups are taking over “educational institutions” and jobs of “high social importance”.

The study pointed to one particular action that has taken place in recent years on social media platforms and by a variety of other industries—censorship. They said that left-wing authoritarians often “strive to suppress free speech to regulate the expression of right-wing beliefs.”

They said that this occurs in many institutions, including “educational institutions” and higher social roles. “As grandiose narcissists typically desire fame, distinction, elevated social status, and high social importance, they can be assumed to strive for influential positions,” the study concluded.

Former President Donald Trump has been telling his supporters for a long time that “these people are sick,” and it finally seems like that is proving to be right. This study gives a strong explanation of why leftists are so radically vindictive and violent.  These people are wielding extraordinary power at every level of public office.

 

Professor punished for stating there are only two sexes

May 15, 2021  By Eric Utter

The American Psychological Association (APA) recently removed John Staddon, an emeritus professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, from the Society for Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology (SBNCP) Division 6 listserv, an email discussion group. What prompted his ouster? Staddon was notified of his removal from the list in an email from the presidential trio of the APA division. He believes he was expunged for stating his belief that there are only two sexes, in particular this post: “Hmm… Binary view of sex false? What is the evidence? Is there a Z chromosome?”......... You know dark days have arrived when stating an obvious scientific fact can be considered threatening, demeaning, or discriminatory. (Or can engender strong differences of opinion.) The APA has also clearly removed “logical” from psychological.............To Read More.....

Psychiatrist Unfit For Duty

By Rich Kozlovich

On March 11, Mike Lachance posted the article, Yale Psychiatrist Who Called Trump Mentally Unfit For Office Refuses To Offer Diagnosis on Joe Biden.

Dr. Bandy Lee thinks she’s so good at what she does she doesn’t have to meet a patient to know they’re nuts…or unfit….or who knows what. She has claimed Donald Trump is unfit for office. Really? Amazing diagnosis! And that diagnosis is based on what?

As far as I can tell, that “diagnosis” is based on nothing except her dislike for Donald Trump.  How could anyone refute that kind of medical science? Right? That’s of course if everyone is assuming psychiatry is really medical science.   Or is it a science of misrepresentation, and make it up as they go along?  She even claims he's so powerful he's brainwashed his supporters. Which makes them all unfit also.

However, the Board of Psychiatrists find fault with diagnosis without examination. It’s considered malpractice, and she's now diagnosed tens of millions of people she's never met or even heard of. Amazing!!   But Bandy has assured Democrats in Congress Trump is unfit, and she has a “duty to warn”.

Is it her "duty to warm" us about Joe Biden also?

What is her diagnosis of Joe Biden?

After all, it’s clear (and I want to use the correct medical term here) Joe is in deep mental donkey doo.   

His mental condition is so observably bad even reporters can tell he’s lost it.  If reporters get it you know how bad it must be. 

But, this psychiatric genius, who can watch Trump on television and read articles about him, can diagnosis him as unfit.  Okay, but if she has this overwhelming "duty to warn" America about the mental unfitness of politicians, why does she refuse to diagnose Biden?

Furthermore, it must be clear to the most casual observer that Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and most certainly Maxine Waters, along with a host of others in politics suffer from some sort of mental disorder or other, yet she offers no diagnosis about any of them, or their supporters.

Now, there's nothing partisan about that. Is there?

Unless of course you believe all leftists are so obviously, observably, and insufferably nuts no further diagnosis is necessary. How’s that sound? I like it! Also, I can do that with impunity because I'm not an doctor!

Well, Bandy has had her fifteen minutes of fame, and is now under a microscope. Here’s my diagnosis, she’s nuts, and her career is done!  See, I can also say that with impunity because I'm not a doctor.  However, I'm an exterminator, as a result, I can spot a pest a mile off.  So too can those in responsible positions in her field:

“The American Psychiatric Association (APA) declared it “unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion” on a public figure for whom they have neither given a face-to-face examination nor received legal consent to disclose said patient’s medical information”.  It’s considered the “Goldwater Rule.”

‘“The Goldwater Rule” was established during the Cold War after 1,189 psychiatrists declared Republican Senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater “psychologically unfit” to be president in a successful bid to ruin his campaign. 

Goldwater won his lawsuit against Fact Magazine for organizing and publishing the poll of psychiatrists. Just as Dr. Lee is leading a nearly identical movement against Trump and published a book claiming that “hundreds of mental health experts” agree with her, she could also very easily be sued for violating the same ethical rule.”

Remember her “duty to warn”?  What exactly does she have to warn us about? 

“Trump is going to wipe out all of humanity.”

 She wants to declare:

“a public health emergency that needs to be responded to as quickly as possible. As more time passes, we come closer to the greatest risk of danger, one that could even mean the extinction of the human species,” ….“This is not hyperbole. This is the reality.”

Wow!  How could any reasonable person think that’s nuts?  Well maybe, since someone did say that her "Newsweek interview was a disturbingly mentally deranged rant."   Her claims go on and on, and they’re being denounced as “tawdry, indulgent, fatuous tabloid psychiatry” but her rants have "obliterated her claim of having a “duty to warn.”'

Final thoughts. 

If she's any standard of her profession, the lunatics really are running the asylum.  If she's not the standard of the profession, when is her license to practice going to be revoked? After all, by the accepted standards of her profession she's clearly "mentally unfit", or is she still working at Yale, making Yale's fitness an issue? 

The Scientific Experts Who Hate Science

Ben Shapiro Jan 09, 2019

This week, the American Psychological Association proved once again that it is a political body rather than a scientific one. It has done it before -- in 2013, it reclassified "gender identity disorder" in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, calling it "gender dysphoria" and then explaining that living with the delusion that you are a member of the opposite sex is not actually a mental disorder at all. That ruling was based on zero scientific evidence -- much like the original DSM-5 classification of pedophilia as a "sexual orientation" before it was renamed "pedophilic disorder" under public pressure.

The latest example of the APA's political hackery concerns the topic of "traditional masculinity." In the APA journal, it announced that it had released new guidelines to "help psychologists work with men and boys." Those guidelines suggest that "40 years of research" show that "traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly." The APA explains that "traditional masculinity -- marked by stoicism, competitiveness,  dominance and aggression -- is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors.".........To Read More....

The latest attempt to "psychologize" conservatives

John Jay Ray

There could be few more Authoritarian, rigid and closed minded people than believers in Global Warming.  Their usual response to being shown evidence about the non-correlation between global temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels is, not to discuss the matter, but to appeal to authority. "97% of scientists say ..." is their typical response, with no awareness that they are misquoting.  They base their beliefs entirely on authority, not on the scientific facts.  They talk airily about "The Science" while showing an abject ignorance of any climate science whatsoever.

And Leftists generally are like that.  If a conservative mentions any fact that conflicts with Leftist gospel, the response of the Leftist is either to run away or shower the conservative with abuse  -- sometimes both. We conservative bloggers encounter it all the time.

So it is amusing that Leftist psychologists have been beavering away for over 60 years in an attempt to prove that it is CONSERVATIVES who are rigid, closed-minded and authoritarian.

But to get any result in line with their desires, they have to use very sloppy research methods, most particularly opinion inventories that lack predictive validity.  If they think that some opinion expression indicates conservatism, rigidity etc they conclude that it does without further ado.  I spent 20 years pointing out the flaws in their research methods but that seems to have had no influence whatsoever.  They liked their conclusions too much to examine the evidence closely.  I have given many examples of such pseudo "research" over the years but let me mention just a couple here.

A widely used measure of mental rigidity was the Budner scale of Intolerance of Ambiguity.  It contains both tolerant and intolerant opinion expressions.  And the two sorts of expressions are combined to produce a measure of overall rigidity.  So the two sorts of item should show a strong negative correlation between them. People who agree with the "tolerant" statements should disagree with the "intolerant" statements.  But they do not.  The two types of item are uncorrelated.  They clearly measure two unrelated things.  So which type of item measures "intolerance of ambiguity"?  Who knows?  Probably neither. But I have yet to read of any user of the Budner scale being bothered by its self contradictory nature.  They accept garbage as information.

And the means they use to assess conservatism are equally hilarious.  A very popular measuring instrument is the Altemeyer Right Wing Authoritarianism attitude inventory.  Yet its  author admitted that it gave very little prediction of vote at election time.  Roughly half of the alleged right wingers as detected by the inventory actually voted for Leftist parties.  A very strange measure of anything Right-wing!  To cap it off there was one group found who regularly did score highly on it:  Russian Communists.  But if they are Right-wing who is Left-wing?

But the "research" concerned goes on, scatterbrained definitions and all.  One of the most ardent workers in the vineyard is the  Belgian Psychologist Alain Van Hiel.  He still seems to think there is something in the research concerned.  I tried to disabuse him of that idea a few years back, but, as usual, I was pissing into the wind.  His latest paper is: "The Relationship Between Right-wing Attitudes and Cognitive Style: A Comparison of Self-report and Behavioural Measures of Rigidity and Intolerance of Ambiguity" -- appearing in the 2016 European Journal of Personality.

And Van Hiel has gone from bad to worse as far as conceptual confusion is concerned.  In his latest paper, he accepts just about anything as an index of conservatism, from the afore-mentioned "Right Wing Authoritarianism" inventory to the Rokeach Dogmatism scale, which was specifically constructed NOT to correlate with Left/Right orientation. So the numbers he gets out of his research are meaningless.  One wonders why he bothers.  He must have a great need to project Leftist failings onto conservatives.

More on what lies behind the Left/Right divide

By Jon Jay Ray

Among psychologists, the most interesting answer to the above question is that given by John Hibbing.  He might be called the "rockstar" of the debate. He attracts attention because he goes down to the physiological and brain-science level for his evidence and conclusions.  He says that what you believe is a product of what you are.  He does not stress it but "what you are" is genetically determined.  So he is looking for inherited physiological differences between Leftists and conservatives.

And he has made some progress.  He has put people through a number of experimental tasks and found that the reactions he observes to the tasks  do indeed differ as between the two ideological groups.  He describes his findings as showing that "disgust sensitivity" is the key variable.  Conservatives are more easily disgusted.  Most generally, they have a "negativity bias", according to Hibbing.  And last year he put up a big paper summarizing the evidence for his view.  It is "Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in  political ideology"

I have long argued that Left/Right differences are largely inborn so my critique of Hibbing is not to contest his findings but to question the "spin" he puts on them.  You can find a pretty good summary of his experiments here and I think it is easy to see that what Hibbing calls "negativity bias" could just as well be described as caution -- and caution has long been said to be the essence of conservatism.  So Hibbing has confirmed some old wisdom rather than telling us anything new.

Hibbing's big article was published in an open review journal so critiques of it keep multiplying.  One such  critique that I have noted recently was "Not so simple: The multidimensional nature and diverse origins of political ideology" by Stanley Feldman and Leonie Huddy.  They make two points that I think are pretty right:

They say that "negativity bias" is characteristic of neurotics and that all the studies show that conservatives are not particularly neurotic.  I observed that in my research too.  So that is a bit of a stake in the heart for Hibbing.  His "spin" on his results has undone him.  If he had simply described conservatives as cautious, that criticism could not so easily be levelled at him.

Their second point is that there is no single Left-Right dimension.  Economic conservatism and social conservatism are quite different. So Feldman & Huddy conclude that Hibbing's work is pretty useless because he has mixed up two different things.  And it is indeed true that those two types of attitudes are very distinct factorially.  I noted that in one of my papers long ago.

So they are right but I am prepared to defend Hibbing on that one.  Although there are  two  distinctly different types of conservative attitude,  they are not totally different.  As I found, they do correlate, albeit weakly.  And that is why the "big tent" of the GOP succeeds.  The two types of conservative do find some things in common, a respect for the individual, mainly.

And as we see in "Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits", Hibbing uses the Wilson scale in his research, which is primarily a measure of social conservatism. And I have shown elsewhere that social conservatism is the big one for separating people.  Economic conservatism is arguably more important to our future but it doesn't get the blood boiling like social issues do: Abortion, homosexuality, religion, tradition etc.

So Hibbing may not be measuring overall conservatism but he is measuring social conservatism and that is the most central sort of conservatism.  So I would summarize his findings as showing that social conservatives are instinctively more cautious than others.  And I see no problem with that.

Hibbing uses "Negativity" rather than "caution" to describe conservatives because he wants to rubbish conservatives (though he says he does not).  "Negative" sounds a lot sadder than "cautious".  But in so doing he lands himself in trouble.  I have noted the Feldman & Huddy comment on that but there is in fact a bigger vat of boiling oil he falls into:

As is noted here, who are the "negative" people when it comes to global warming?  Warmists are almost entirely Leftists but it is they who are vastly negative about the climate and our future.  They predict imminent catastrophe -- while conservatives are mostly just amused by the scare. Conservatives say in  summary that: "global warming is not a crisis, the likely benefits of man-made global warming exceed the likely costs, and mankind is not the scourge on Earth that liberals make us out to be"

And again, referring to conservatives simply as cautious would not enable that criticism.  Warmists do say that they are the cautious ones but to swallow the arrant nonsense that is global warming would have to be a height of incautiousness.  Conservatives just look at the evidence and see that there is no need for caution in the matter.  Here's a graph of the amount of global warming we have had in the last 18 years  -- none:

So two cheers for Hibbing.  He has drawn attention to the biological basis of ideology but he should stop stretching the implications of his findings in a Leftist direction.  He just makes a fool of himself with that stretch.  He was pretty reasonable -- even humble -- in a 2012 paper.  He should try more of that.

Answers to "The Test"!

By Rich Kozlovich

A few days ago I posted an item that I called, This is a Test, and linked another article for everyone’s perusal. The article was a perfect example of how logical fallacies and lies of omission are part and parcel of the green/left movement.

She starts out by discussing some psychiatrist’s views on why people aren’t really evil, they just lack empathy. That in itself is logical fallacy, because empathy is a personal quality, while evil requires action.   After all, couldn't there be un-empathetic people who don’t do evil things?  Couldn't there be people who are empathetic and yet do evil things?

Evil, like cruelty, requires action. In order to be evil one has to do evil. The fact that they lack empathy is merely an explanation of why some were able to perform acts of evil, but there really are evil people who do evil things and there is evil done by those who only become evil by their actions.

However, were all of the maniacs in the Soviet Union just un-empathetic when they murdered upward of fifty million of their fellow citizens? Not initially they weren't.

Bukharin, a founding member of the Soviet Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a founding leader of the Soviet Union (who became a recipient of tender mercies of his personal friend Stalin) said years later that “mass annihilation of completely defenseless men, with women and children" under forced collectivization and liquidation of kulaks as a class that dehumanized the Party members with "the profound psychological change in those communists who took part in the campaign.

Instead of going mad, they accepted terror as a normal administrative method and regarded obedience to all orders from above as a supreme virtue... They are no longer human beings. They have truly become the cogs in a terrible machine." Note….”They are no longer human beings.” They didn’t start out will little of no empathy, but they perpetrated evil non-the-less on a scale that even made Hitler seem tame.

As for his conclusions that all we need is empathy….reminds me of the Beetle’s song. “All we need is love”….Ok….I can buy into that if we can get everyone to go along. But that isn’t what the world has.

I would like to know how much empathy Neville Chamberlain could have shown to Adolph Hitler in order to avoid WWII; remember he tried…..and failed. The same is true of Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar…etc. It still comes down to this. Those with empathy don’t need to be taught it and those who don’t have it won’t be taught it.

So, if a diplomat, general, attorney, family member enjoys the torment he inflicts on others no amount of empathy by you will fix that. It takes the use of power.

And the only power that could impose that level of compassion worldwide would have to be divine force. And these people are not that divine force, and all the socialist swill in the world (which is what this is all about) cannot make it so.  It isn' t our understanding that is necessary, it is their understanding that counts.....and they don't care because they have a mission or a goal they wish to attain irrespective of how it affects others, especially if they are socialists.

But next comes the primary logical fallacy. Notice how cleverly the writer makes an irrational leap in logic. This article starts out defining crazy people, what they do, and why they do it, and then jumps to corporations so smoothly that it implies that everyone working in the companies of the world must be insane.

Just because corporations are artificial entities created by government doesn’t make them psychopaths. In point of fact; they can‘t be psychopaths because they don’t think, they don’t feel and are not self aware. They are a paper creation and don’t really exist except as a financial tool. The decisions are still made by people. And whether the owners of these companies are owners of corporations, limited liability companies, sole proprietorships, partnerships or political leaders it would be immaterial. The primary function of every company is to make profits. That is why people have jobs. That is why governments can collect taxes.

That is why countries that practice capitalism have the best life styles in the world for their people. This is base line for being in business. However, companies of every ilk have pumped untold billions into their communities to the benefit of the communities. Why isn’t that mentioned? And those decisions were made in spite of the fact that those billions would not be going to the stockholders as dividends.  It is true that companies have abandoned communities, but why was that?  Because they hate the local people?  NO!  They moved or went out of business.  Would that have made this writer happier?  It really is true; even if you make the finest buggy whip in the world; the world doesn't need that many buggy whips anymore. 

This business about chemicals and “other toxic substances’ causing horrific damage and injury to the world” is another one of those unendingly repeated lies that have become accepted by repetition, but it still remains a lie. All of these products have been vilified with unscientific horsepucky. The world has been better for all of these products.

Regarding all this talk about slave labor and all that goes with it, I don’t know about some of this either way, but I will take a stab and say that this is probably true if you compared their circumstances with the American lifestyle.

However, is it better or worse than their fellow countrymen? In point of fact, in most of these cases where these outrageous claims are made we find that they are happy to have these jobs. And when the adverse publicity forced owners to abandon production facilities in these countries these people were left without any income. As for the Firestone issue; that isn’t as cut and dry as it seems. First of all this report was based on observations from some Non Governmental Organization (NGO) labor rights organization, and that in itself makes one wonder at the truthfulness of the report.

Dan Adomitis, President of Firestone Natural Rubber Company Liberia, stated:

“Well, in addition to the devastation that 15 years of civil war has caused, I think you need to understand another point -- during the 2003 fighting, we had thousands of refugees come to Harbel for the safety that it provided. When those people came, they occupied any open area of land that was available. They put up temporary housing made out of mud, out of bamboo, out of thatch, out of tarpaulin, out of corrugated steel. Anything that they could do to get shelter. And those conditions still exist. They are not Firestone housing, but they are on our property.”

“We have very strict policies about child labor. We do not hire anybody under 18 years of age, and we discourage parents from bringing their children to the fields with them. We have a program with the Ministry of Labor in Liberia to - and also the union that represents our employees -- to educate parents about why they should not bring children with them into the field. And if we see incidents of this, we will cancel those employees, and if necessary, ultimately discipline them over such issue.”

Wow….somehow I think that was germane to the subject….don’t you? I wonder why they left that out? The problem with greenies and the lefties is that they lie!   Lies of commission and lies of omission. These were jobs these people might love having, and most importantly, needed.

Stop comparing American wages, living conditions and circumstances with those people living in countries that are poverty stricken by our standards. That is a logical fallacy….and helps perpetuate the big lie.

As for all the accusations about murder, slave labor, etc. this would be unacceptable under any circumstances. Not one conservative pro-corporation person I know would accept that. Just because some people from some company does terrible things (and that we're just supposing that any of this actually did happened) does not justify painting all companies and their people with that same brush.

As for Chiquita giving money to right wing and left wing terrorists groups; I remembered when this happened because at one point I was following the stock. The fact is they were paying off all of these groups in order to protect their employees. I wonder if they would be under attack by these groups if the only ones they paid off were the left wing terrorists. And it's clear the local government sure couldn’t protect their employees, including the U.S. Justice Department which fined them.

Just like the mob they were extorting everyone, including Chiquita. So tell me, since the government couldn’t or wouldn’t protect their people - what were they to do to protect them? What would you do?

In the U.S. extortion is a crime by the exporter, not the extorted. If they are doing illegal things then arrest them, try them and punish them, but let’s stop this delusional claptrap, this has nothing to do with corporate empathy. Corporate empathy cannot exist because corporations aren’t real. People are real and people make those decisions. And those decisions are not always based of profit motives!

This so-called corporate machine that needs to be “put to rest” has brought more people out of dystopia than any system the world has ever known. All of this socialist horsepucky is nothing more than an outrageous diatribe against capitalism.

Socialists have failed time and time again to provide the basic needs of their people. Food shortages have been a mark of socialist states from the beginning, along with terrible living conditions, and at times they were deliberately starved to death. The death toll by socialist’s states of its own people ran up to 100 million deliberately killed by their own governments. The only group that could be held more accountable for crimes against humanity would be the environmental movement.

Furthermore, socialist’s states have been absolutely devastating to the environment. China and Russia are primary examples of environmental devastation - all done in the name of the people. Not profit. Companies who work for profit in capitalist countries do so in an environment where they can be held accountable for their actions, and often are, and rightly so. But legitimately run companies for profit are not the problem, they're the solution.

I find it interesting that the article starts out with a cry for empathy and claims that corporations are not really evil. Then the author ends with a condemnation of every businessman in the world for being evil. Typical left wing inability to be truthful or consistent. This diatribe is a logical fallacy from start to finish.

To recap my earlier points, here is the reality that they always miss. Companies are in business to do business not to do good. If they do good business they will make profits. Those profits are distributed and then everyone can take their profits and do whatever darn good they wish to do, and often do.

Even if they wish to be keep the money for their own uses exclusively….they are giving back to the community by spending that money on food, dining out, movies, clothes, houses, boats, cars, etc.

That provides “JOBS”.

And every dime goes directly back to members of the community who will then decide for themselves how to spend that money to their benefit, just as the owners of successful companies did.

This will be accomplished without having huge chunks taken out be some government bureaucrat who will then decide how the rest is to be spent. Or perhaps I should say wasted by socialist bureaucracies.

The result has been this. We are living longer, healthier, and happier lives than any time in human history because of capitalism. Period!  Get over it!