I received two interesting responses to my “Putin and Hitler” blog post:
Bruce Braun wrote:
Like they say: Every US Senator who looks in a mirror sees a US President looking back.
Back in 1981 when I was at WCAU in Philadelphia, I took the Metroliner down to DC for meetings one morning. The train stopped in Wilmington and who gets on but Joe Biden along with some guy who was apparently an aide of some sort.
They sat down one row up and over from me, with Joe on the aisle. They began talking about people and legislative matters. Joe spoke in a loud voice, the kind that people use when they want those around or near them to hear what they are saying.
It surprised me because I had been taught to never discuss company business when you were on a plane, train, elevator or bathroom. The reasoning was you never knew who might be in earshot. And, if you did have to speak, you whispered.
Apparently Joe did not subscribe to that philosophy. He made a point of expressing his opinions and feeling towards, legislation, other senators and congress members. None of those loudly voiced comments could have been considered to be complimentary.
I was stunned how vulgar his characterizations were: asshole, jerk-off, shithead, etc. Yeah, it was that bad and on a crowded public train. I concluded he was a narcissist of the first order who thought he was a brilliant politician without peer.
I think your analysis below is spot on and in particular,the 50/50 example.
In respect to military psychological testing and screening. When I went thru Basic and Advanced Infantry training in the Army in 1970, we had six guys in our company who were criminals convicted of armed robbery, larceny, assault, etc. The judge gave them the choice of six years in prison or three years in the Army. Early one morning, the MP’s burst into the barracks, cuffed these guys and hauled them off. The MP’s tossed their lockers and found several live hand grenades, blasting caps, detonation cord, a block of C4 high explosives, magazines of M-16 ammo and even a Claymore Anti-personnel mine, and other items they had purloined off the different training areas. Without a doubt, these soldiers-in-arms were psychos of the first order.
I concur about administering psychological screening testing to politicians, starting with every candidate for public office.
Interestingly, Sharon has a cousin who is a clinical psychologist (Colonel and PhD) in the AIrForce. Air Force Academy grad as well. I was chatting with her one day and she told me the AF actually looks for narcissistic traits when screening those aspiring to become military pilots! I asked why and she said the belief was in part because pilots need to be supremely self-confident and fearless.
Bill Grimes wrote:
I would never agree that we (who? Pres, Congress, doctors, psychiatrists, you or me?) should give psychological tests because the results are not science and misinterpretation and manipulation would be easy.
And who would be in the role to interpret the results? Democrats, Republicans? Judges, shrinks? Mayhem would result.
To end life today three doctors must agree that the individual has no chance to recover, and as a result there is frequent disagreement, (I know this because a friend with stage 4 cancer was denied to have a merciful, painless death). It is difficult to get three docotrs to agree, and that causes undue suffering for the person who is denied the right to end his/her life.
We have the right to pursue happiness but not to end our lives without suffering. To this, of course , we can thank religion, mostly Catholicism. Of course in Switzerland and I think a couple of other nations in Europe, one can decide–with certain conditions, like pain and suffering–to decide how and when to have a painless death. In our country the State decides, which I think is more control over an individual’s life than any government should have.
Psychological testing is not the way to determine whether a person will be an honest, hard-working, empathetic person working for the good of all he/she serves. Prior experience and references who have worked with the candidate(s) would have produced a much better result.
I’m not sure that psychological testing is the right answer,but I think we need to debate the issue of how a democracy deals with protecting itself against the Putins, Hitlers, Stalins, and Trumps?
