Dear Friends,
It seems to me, sadly, grass roots progressives tend to be angry and hate filled people. Have you ever tried to have a conversation about politics with one? Never making a point that does not drip with hate… progressives openly despise their political enemies. Not so much following platforms, plans or past actions, progressives only care about personalities. Even old friends become enraged instead of engaged. Bring up a fact they dislike and they project their blind fury on you. You simply cannot have any meaningful discussion with someone so enraged. It’s like trying to discuss engine displacement with a drowning man… it cannot be done. Reason does not work with unreasonable people. Which brings me to two questions, why are they so hate filled, and how can their hate be siphoned away?
Emotional people will be emotional. I find the Briggs Myers personality system to be very informative about people’s inner natures. Except that it predicts me to be a liberal. Being Introverted and Intuitive. Yet I am also Thinking and Judging. Introversion, intuitive thinking, feeling and perceiving are indicative of liberals, while extroversion, sensing, thinking and judging are more conservative traits. The system the pseudo science of psychology prefers is the five factor system. In that system, people who rate high in open mindedness, neuroticism and low in conscientiousness tend to be “liberals.” While psychologists claim that people high in conscientiousness, orderliness and low in neuroticism tend towards conservatism. Suggesting that our emotional tendencies are largely out of our control.
Lack of gratitude makes someone bitter, angry and resentful. Our culture is not thankful today. We have so much yet we are angry about it. While our physical needs are met in spades, our spiritual needs are ignored. Gratitude feeds our spirits. Starved for sustenance, our spirits turn on us, to feed on our psyche. Ask a progressive if he or she has thanked God today for anything. There will be a few who will answer yes, but the vast majority will say, God? Seriously? Why thank the sky king for what I have done? Then in the next breath claim, “You didn’t build that, ” about the business you have struggled to develop your entire life, despite the roadblocks the government put in your way. Showing that progressives have no problem with cognitive dissonance. Even to their own harm.
There have always been political factions that have taken advantage of emotional people to become despotic. The emotional are easy to control. No place is that more obvious than when a demagogue takes over a mob and wields it to his will. Mobs don’t think, they react, making them perfect weapons for malevolent people to use. Hitler didn’t appeal to the German intellect… he appealed to their emotions. The same can be said of Lenin, Robespierre, fat Mao, Pol Pot, Hugo, etc… Despots appeal to emotion, never reason. In Orwellian fashion they claim emotion is reason, to inoculate themselves from reason. That is one way to determine if a faction serves evil instead of good, is if it appeals to emotion instead of intellect. As the American progressive party does.
How do you help an emotional person be less emotional? Lead by example and remain calm in the face of their personal attacks. Then call attention to the fact their emotions are driving them. How do you instill a feeling of gratitude in an ingrate? Lead by example and be grateful yourself. Instead of demanding they be grateful, display gratefulness before them, goodness is very magnetic. The faction that plays on emotion and hate, could be limited, if we demand our leaders follow our Constitutionally limited system. Which was intended to control men’s passions in the first place. Else we could cede the field to people who’s anger and hate will lead them to crimes against humanity. Like every other time bitter, angry and resentful people have gained unlimited power. The choice, in the end, is ours.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
