Re: Study on "Authoritarians" 
 
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:26:23 -0600 (CST)


Response to me from another list

M. 
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 14:14:39 -0500
From: Nyc W. Alberts <digitalcomponents@GMAIL.COM>

Probably no other work has shaped my political thinking more in the last 
ten years than this breezy little read of Doc 
Altemeyer's grim, and ice cold-blooded, thesis is a very simple one, (which is 
prolly why Progressives seem to have such a hard time grasping it, no j/k), 
which in its essence boils down to this:

In *any* population pool roughly 30% of the electorate will always, 
always, /always/, now, and forevermore, vote for the most Authoritarian 
candidate.

What that means in a "democracy" such as the one we have here in the USA, 
where "the majority rules" is that our elections hinge on getting another 
21% to go along with that solid 30% voting bloc.

Which is exactly how George W. Busch was able to win the last two 
s/elections, by using this very simple concept.

How you get to the other 21% is also very simple.

The multi-billion dollar barrage of advertising on the TV will take care 
of at least another 15% of the vote, and from there all you need to do to 
go over the top and win is to rig a few voting machines and disenfranchise 
a very small percentage of voters in key states like Ohio and Florida.

Seen one way, the 2004 s/Election was decided by all of 150,000 votes, 
(the equivalent of 3 sports stadiums filled to capacity on Any Given 
Sunday), that *weren't* cast in Ohio by using these methods.

Unless the Democrats wake up to this successful strategery they're going 
to have their asses handed to them time and time again.

Anyways, thanks for bringing this to a wider audience.

I'm subbed to the Google-Groups mailing list on the Authoritarians site 
and so far it's been a bit of a disappointment because there just aren't 
as many people subbed to it to bring it to any sort of critical mass so if 
any of you out there in NetLand feels so inclined to deepen and broaden 
the conversation there please, by all means, feel free to sign up.

~Nyc
###############

MichaelP wrote:
  usable free info
  #################
  http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ The Authoritarians
> 
> Bob Altemeyer's - The Authoritarians 
> 
> Whole Book (PDF version 1.35Mb) 
> <http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf>
> 
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> OK,  what's  this  book  about? It's about what's happened to the American 
> government  lately. It's about the disastrous decisions that government has 
> made.  It's  about  the  corruption  that  rotted the Congress.  It's about 
> how  traditional  conservatism has nearly been destroyed  by 
> authoritarianism. It's about how the "Religious Right" teamed  up with amoral 
> authoritarian leaders to push its un-democratic agenda  onto the country. 
> It's about the United States standing at the crossroads as the next federal 
> election approaches.
> 
> [snip]