The Left's totalitarian impulse...conformity, control and claptrap

The Thought Slavermasters

By Timothy Birdnow Friday, November 11, 2011

Most would call it inhuman slavery of the mind. Liberals call it ‘better living through science’.

Liberals have used science at the service of their ideology for a long time. Consider Sigmund Freud, whose theories were so destructive to Western sexual morality, or the work of Margaret Mead which propagated the false belief in the infinite malleability of human nature and advanced the Free Love Movement. Mead has been shownby Derek Freeman to be spectacularly wrong, and likely purposefully so.

Liberals have advanced their worldview through countless acts of subversion through science. The DDT ban. The nuclear freeze movement. Global Warming.

We have witnesses the abuse of science for well over a century.

And that abuse has always extended to the human mind. Psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology have all been attempts to understand the human thought process, and frequently to alter it. Consider the rise of modern propaganda; the work of people like Edward Bernays would be seized upon by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany to control the thoughts of the populace. New techniques utilizing recording technology, radio, (later) television, gave those who seek to inculcate their views powerful new ways to not just compel behavior but to control thought itself.

Thought control is the ultimate end for Progressives; they have always wanted to fundamentally alter human nature. And now they may be at the point where they can do it.

According to Roger Pielke Jr.:

“Chris Mooney, the author and blogger who once alleged a Republican “war” on science, is going back to that well one more time with a new book. In it he “explores brain scans, polls, and psychology experiments to explain why conservatives today believe more wrong things.”

Mooney writes:

”[T]here might be a combination of genes acting together that somehow predispose us to have particular politics, presumably through their role in influencing our brains and thus our personalities or social behaviors ..,”

Mooney promises to explain:

”[T]he real, scientific reasons why Republicans reject the widely accepted findings of mainstream science, economics, and history—as well as many undeniable policy facts.”

Gee, with an understanding of the “real, scientific reasons” behind such a disability, perhaps scientists might develop some sort of medicine or gene therapy for “Republicanism.” The search for such a cure would not occur for political reasons, of course, but for humanitarian reasons. The obvious mental impairments suffered by these misguided and genetically inferior people are, of course, not their fault, but perhaps aided by science, we can help them.

The Left has been using this old saw for a long, long time; I direct your attention here.The Soviet Union frequently used the psikhushka, or psychiatric hospital, to break dissidents; the claim was that anybody who couldn’t see the benefits of the glorious socialist revolution and who did not have some sort of privilege to protect must be crazy.

There is great merit for the Left in calling the other side insane. Remember, the fundamental underlying assumption in Liberal thought has always been that Man is inherently good, and Liberalism is rational—and if that is so then those of good will MUST be liberals! Either that, or they must either have some personal benefit to gain, or be insane. Nobody could actually oppose their worldview sincerely without being insane or self-serving! And, of course, if they are insane, they must be treated medically.

Which is precisely why socialized medicine is so important to the advancement of the leftist agenda; if the medical profession is a government service then it is easy to suppress your enemies on medical grounds. Doctors could report “latent right wing tendencies” to the authorities as they might note latent schizophrenia. Efforts could be undertaken to suppress this dangerous malady before it metastasizes.

A few years back I wrote about a junk science study (which no doubt figures into Chris Mooney’s book) which claimed that liberal brains are more flexible than those of conservatives.

This poorly conducted research by a group of political liberals illustrated that it is possible to manipulate science to say what one wants. But the point is it is intended to establish a medical distinction which lays the grounds for later suppression of conservatives.

Citing an earlier study from 2003 (which included a member of the later team) I quoted the press release;

“Four researchers who culled through 50 years of research literature about the psychology of conservatism report that at the core of political conservatism is the resistance to change and a tolerance for inequality, and that some of the common psychological factors linked to political conservatism include: Fear and aggression, Dogmatism, and intolerance of ambiguity, Uncertainty avoidance, Need for cognitive closure, Terror management”

If this is hardwired into the brain, if such bad things as resistance to change and tolerance for inequality and aggression Dogmatism are biologically driven, would it not be incumbent upon medical science to find a cure? Why not use medicine to “cure” such a psychosis?

And given the increasing understanding of the human brain, the ability to “cure” conservatives becomes terrifying. It is fast becoming possible to medically circumvent free will.

In point of fact, these possibilities have been understood by those coming out of the Left; consider the science used to shape individuals in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

Consider this fun little gadget. Invented by the Saudis, it is essentially a tiny GPS system designed to be inserted into the body and thus allowing the government to track the “registered” person’s movements. A slight modification would allow this device to inject a lethal substance into the subject with the push of a button (thus making it similar to the slave control device from Star Wars Episode One-the Phantom Menace).

Cutting edge technology will soon make it possible to control the populace at the neurological level, giving the ultimate power to leftist tyrants.

Consider this research into using ultrasound to remotely affect human brains. Improvement in sonic lenses and the use of pulsed sonic waves opens the door to tampering with previously mapped portions of the brain. These sound waves can excite or inhibit certain brain functions, meaning that it should be possible to develop a neural remote control, possibly with a receiver on a person’s forehead. (Does anybody remember the remote control in the remake of The Stepford Wives?)

Now, the mind and the brain are different things, and fine control of a person’s thoughts seems unlikely, but control of the ancient, mammalian portions of the brain—those portions controlling motor functions and emotions—may be entirely possible. This is scary stuff.

Here is another disturbing development; neuroscientists have mapped out the areas associated with social relationships. Apparently, these lie in the left and right inferior temporal lobes, orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum, and the left putamen and pallidum, as well as lower gray matter in the left and right cerebellum.

According to one of the researchers:

“Professor Simon Baron Cohen, of the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, said:“This is an important study in showing that the degree to which we find socializing rewarding is correlated with differences in brain structure.

“It reminds us that for some people, socializing is an intrinsic reward, just like chocolate or cannabis. And that what you find rewarding depends on differences in the brain.”

So, scientists now know what parts of the brain tie in with sociability. Liberals, as we all know, are very social critters. Perhaps conservatives require some brain alterations to make them more amenable?

Apparently this isn’t as impossible as it sounds; researchers have found that deep brain electrode stimulation can trigger the generation of new neurons in mice.

Here is the pertinent point about all this:

“After the electro-stimulation therapy, they injected the mice with iododeoxyuridine, a substance that allows experts to analyze which neurons are active, and which are not. After training the animals to a simple task, Stone looked at their brains, searching for a protein called Fos. This protein is associated with learning, and takes only 90 minutes to form. He learned that the Fos levels in both natural and artificially-produced neurons were the same. “These new neurons aren’t just sitting around doing nothing,” he concluded. ”

In short, electrode stimulation can generate new brain tissue that will allow people to learn far certain things far more quickly.

So, what will our future overlords require of us? Perhaps our wise and noble leaders in Washington can develop this technology to turn us all into tofu-loving, granola-eating, hybrid-driving liberals through better science? Children could have their brains manipulated to make them more “sociable” i.e. more liberal. Wouldn’t a man like Richard Dawkins advocate eradicating “superstitions” like God, through manipulations of the brain? With psychic manipulation, coupled with a reinforcement machine like that sonic brain gadget, it should be possible to create the ultimate voting public.

And why would anyone on the Left object? Liberals have always seen free will as an inconvenience to their plans, and they have traditionally labored to devise methods to control what people think and how they feel. The old Soviet Union had many techniques for brainwashing individuals, including sleep deprivation, propaganda, drugs.

To the Left—especially to the materialistic atheists on the Left—Man is but a series of conditioned responses, and free will is merely an illusion, the product of random, deterministic processes. Modern neuroscience has been used to buttress this position, since we have been learning about the different areas of the brain and how they relate to thought and behavior. At the core of all Leftism is the notion that human beings are ultimately mere cogs in a grand machine, and that they are the engineers who design this machine. Free will is relegated to a dusty notion from the past. That is why liberals are soft on crime; criminals act solely on the basis of their biological drives and the conditions under which they were raised. It isn’t their fault! Attempts to reform them have failed thus far, but if they had machines such as these…

This materialism is the heart and soul of liberalism, and all of the Left’s seemingly crazy ideas stem from this central concept. The welfare state, weakness on national security, monetary policy, all stem from a lack of faith in human free will. Liberals believe Man is inherently good, yet they think Man is incompetent because of poor planning and leadership. If they could find a way to impose their views, not just grudgingly, but to insert them into the hearts and minds of the individual…

The late science fiction writer and biologist, Isaac Asimov, dealt with the concept of mind control in his Foundation series. He argues that actually sensing and controlling thoughts—those little voices in our heads—is not something that could be done, at least not for a long time. Asimov believed that the more fundamental aspects of the brain could be manipulated. In his Foundation stories there was a type of sense possessed naturally by the character of the Mule and induced in people with natural proclivity by the Second Foundation whereby the “telepath” could “see” emotions in other people, much as sharks can “see” neural activity in their prey (sometimes by as much as 50 miles). Not only could these people sense emotions, but they could reach out and manipulate those emotions, setting them where they wanted them. Asimov explains that this is a result of magnetic resonance; the telepath’s brains could enter into magnetic resonance with the brain of the victim, then could alter the neural flow by changing their own flow in a special organ inside their brains.

And in the Foundation series this was a mighty ability; the most hated enemy could be made into the most loyal friend, people could be motivated to achieve higher intellectual states, anything was possible (including execution through emotional control for the most horrific death that could be meted out.)

But this power was a natural function of the human brain in Asimov, and obviously the amount of energy that the human brain could project would be limited. We could do a far better job with a mechanical device and a power source. We could create the ultimate horror.

Which is why it is not so much a matter of if as of when; tyrants have always wanted this power, and with the help of irresponsible science and materialistic liberals, this power will be theirs. It will be sold to the public as a matter of great good; a device to control depression or bi-polar or obsessive-compulsion. Later, it could become a vehicle for giving pleasure aka science fiction writer Larry Invents wireheads. But the time will come when these techniques will be used to control the public, control the hearts and minds of people. This would be slavery beyond any in human history.

And there is a tendency towards this in so many new technologies; “smart meters” to tell electric customers about their energy usage habits can easily be adopted to control energy usage and give this information to the government, for example. (In Britain they have overflights of neighborhoods with infrared viewers to see who is wasting energy.) Liberals are always willing to tell people how to live for their own good. People frequently do not listen. They will have to be made to obey, nay, to BELIEVE!

Communist countries have long treated anti-communists as mentally ill, and put them in sanitariums. A machine that could make a person into a liberal would be a Godsend, if they believed in God. I fear He will be the first casualty of these new technologies.

But then, God Himself does not make people think the way He wants. Only Liberals do that.