- #36
Townsend
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pattylou said:Here are some more for you to work on. I provided the edits for you;
Wouldn't you capitalize the letters of 'icbm' also?
(My writing is horrible too. :yuck: )
pattylou said:Here are some more for you to work on. I provided the edits for you;
Townsend said:Wouldn't you capitalize the letters of 'icbm' also?
(My writing is horrible too. :yuck: )
I almost googled to find out, but settled for rationalising that intercontinental, ballistic, and missile can all begin with lower case.Townsend said:Wouldn't you capitalize the letters of 'icbm' also?
(My writing is horrible too. :yuck: )
You're so cute when you yell.Smurf said:STOP HIJACKING MY THREAD (and no, ICBM is all capitals)
Smurf said:STOP HIJACKING MY THREAD (and no, ICBM is all capitals)
Excuse me? Are you implying I'm less cute when I don't yell? I'll have you know I'm smurfish-cute all year round thank you.pattylou said:You're so cute when you yell.
That was like 7 hours ago.I thought you were in class?
Kim Jong Il certainly is desperate, but not insane. Desperate can be almost as dangerous though. And it sounds like there are problems with inept administration of economic programs, perhaps due to appointments made based on loyalty rather than qualifications? :uhh: He probably would have been overthrown long ago except he has been enabled, most of all by his neighbors who fear refugees flooding over the border, etc.--like the evolution toward nuclear capability has been better? In any event, the suggestions at the end seem better than a preemptive first strike.Art said:Here's a serious analysis of the N. Korean issue without the rather silly rhetoric usually employed, to demonise 'evil enemies', for general consumption.
http://www.policyreview.org/oct03/rowen.html
SOS2008 said:That sounds like most dictators to me, but in particular Marcos in the Philippines. I'm sure his wife had way more shoes than Kim Jong Il. And the U.S, supported Marcos for almost 20 years. Ooooh scary!
Who is hijacking the thread now? Do you really want answers to those...?Smurf said:I find this a fascinating statement by you Russ. 10% of Korea's population is about 2 million people. It's interesting that you consider their deaths the act of a sociopath but that 1.1 million people falling into poverty as a mere statistic, or miniscule. I think if killing people alone is enough to call a person a sociopath wouldn't a great deal of America's past presidents be just as bad?
Power corrupts. It happens everywhere all the time--even in the United States.Entropy said:Kim Jong-Il is just selfish, plain and simple. All he cares about is himself. He raises himself above all others and satisfies his own disires at the expense of others. I don't know if extreme egotism is a mental illness or not.
I doubt he is a sociopath. Being one would imply he suffers from antisocial behavior and he seems very charismatic, he must be to build up so many followers considering how goofy he looks.
I doubt he is a psycopath either. Psycopaths generally don't have a fear of consquences, which is why they aren't afraid of the social repercussions of perverted crimes. If he did suffer from this type of mental illness I believe his foreign politics would be far more aggressive than they are. From what I've heard, people who have met with him say he doesn't show aggressive behavior and actually acts very professional.
It is possible that he is delusional, but his behavior doesn't seem to be that irrational to say he is seeing or hearing things. Maybe delusional to the point that he thinks he is doing what is right for his people. But in my opinion I think he doesn't give a damn about his people. Creating weapons of mass destruction is just a way to make sure he holds on to his power. I doubt he is crazy enough to try and use them against another nation. I think he is sane enough to know that if he did we would wipe him out.
I would argue that when narcissism leads you to kidnap an actress and hold her captive for seven years to star in your movie, that's getting close to "psychotic."The Great Leader had an insatiable craving for adulation. By the late '80s he had erected more than 34,000 monuments to himself. His photograph was displayed in every building and pinned to the clothing of every citizen, right over the heart. Benches where he'd once sat were sealed in glass and turned into relics.
I'm not a psychologist, so it should go without saying that my layman's opinions carry little weight on their own. I'll confess I don't see much difference between some of these disorders. Nevertheless, I don't see the distinction between "psychotic" and "malignant narcissism" to be significant enough to split hairs over: Either way, he's criminally insane.And Jerrold Post, the GWU professor and former CIA psychiatrist, believes that the Dear Leader has a serious mental illness.
"He has the core characteristics of the most dangerous personality disorder, malignant narcissism," Post theorized in a recent psychological profile.
The disorder is characterized by self-absorption, an inability to empathize, a lack of conscience, paranoia and "unconstrained aggression."
The Dear Leader, Post concluded, "will use whatever aggression is necessary, without qualm of conscience, be it to eliminate an individual or to strike out at a particular group."
Dictators don't become (remain) dictators through charisma, they become (remain) dictators by killing all those who stand in their way. Il's private persona is apparently somewhat personable - even charming [late edit: sentence didn't make sense], but he speaks in public very rarely. Yes, that's different from Hitler, who was charismatic, but Hitler was trying to rally his country to war, while Il is mostly just clinging to control.Entropy said:I doubt he is a sociopath. Being one would imply he suffers from antisocial behavior and he seems very charismatic, he must be to build up so many followers considering how goofy he looks.
Narcissism is a word often associated with Nixon.russ_watters said:HERE is an interesting article. The word "psychotic" doesn't immediately come to mind, but the word "narcissistic" does [edit: I actually wrote that before finishing the article].
-Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See Synonyms at conceit.
-A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
[dictionary.com]
http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jah/86.2/br_115.htmlThe authors found Nixon to be narcissistic, exhibiting both exaggerated self-love and hungry dependency. The grandiose Nixon centralized decision making in the White House and undertook bold initiatives.
Entropy said:I doubt he is a sociopath. Being one would imply he suffers from antisocial behavior and he seems very charismatic, he must be to build up so many followers considering how goofy he looks.
How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than other people around them. They're more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced.
Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on how to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others' suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.
I think I would tend to associate self-aggrandizement with most people who crave power. Its part of their reason for doing it. That makes most politicians borderline narcissists. But the scope is the key issue here.SOS2008 said:Narcissism is a word often associated with Nixon.
No... well, yes, but in the unemployment thread :tongue:russ_watters said:Who is hijacking the thread now? Do you really want answers to those...?
Could one not view the statues and pictures as a tactic to achieve the current effect of turning him into an almost divine symbol?russ_watters said:-Excessive love or admiration of oneself. See Synonyms at conceit.
-A psychological condition characterized by self-preoccupation, lack of empathy, and unconscious deficits in self-esteem.
[dictionary.com] I would argue that when narcissism leads you to kidnap an actress and hold her captive for seven years to star in your movie, that's getting close to "psychotic."