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What purpose does the narcissist's vindictive behavior serve?
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Aug 10, 2010 6:40 pm
2419 Views
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Source DSM IV
While every human being has a degree of narcissism, when the narcissism becomes excessive it can prevent meaningful human relationships.
The extreme narcissist is always engaged in presenting themselves as elevated to others around them. They wish to appear better by comparison. The narcissist is constantly involved in manipulative behavior in attempts to diminish others so that they feel elevated. One benefits from remembering that a narcissist is threatened by anything that could be construed as criticism. The extreme narcissist is typically incapable of empathy. This absence of empathy accounts for their willingness to dispense vindictive behavior to others.
We need to remember that narcissists don't see the world as you or I see it. They are still small children mentally. They can be compared to a small child that constantly seeks to obtain reinforcement from their mother. They exhibit tendencies that are reminiscent of fighting with everyone else in class for attention. They lack the morality to abstain from lies. They lack the intelligence to see that their tactics don't work in the long run. They don't have the self assurance to let others be happy.
An example of dysfunctional interpersonal relationships that often exists is in situations where a narcissist marries someone with children from a prior relationship or marriage. To the narcissist these children represent competition. Examples of narcissistic behavior in this situation would possibly be to tell the new spouse not to give money, nor to let the children stay in the home when visiting. The narcissist will often purposely try to cause fights to alienate the step children. It's almost like the step children are new step siblings, trying to steal the attention that the narcissist demands.
In the end the narcissist's vindictive behavior is what gets them into trouble and makes it possible to expose them for what they are. Give the narcissist enough rope to hang themselves and they will oblige.
Narcissists are normally vindictive. A large part of the reason they exhibit this behavior with someone who has left them, or abandoned them in any way, is to continue to be able to exert control over another person. They strive to manipulate the person to feel frightened and miserable. If they instill fear or observe a reaction to their vindictive behavior, the mind of the narcissist is gratified.
As strange as it may seem the narcissist thrives on being hated. This is true because, to the narcissist, it is some sign to them that they are important and alive. If no reaction is forthcoming, they become increasingly perhaps even dangerously antisocial because they crave and demand attention. To a narcissist negative attention is preferable to no attention. What a tormented life they live, to need being hated!
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Your Future Courtesy of the GOP
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Aug 10, 2010 2:36 pm
746 Views
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House minority leader John Boehner has recently gone on record saying that the GOP wants to raise the retirement age (eligibility for Social Security) to age 70. Republican senate candidate Sharon Angel (Nevada) is on record as saying that she wants Social Security eliminated. That would necessarily mean that Medicare would also be affected since eligibility is tied to eligibility for Social Security benefits. Social Security and Medicare cost 676 billion per year.
The GOP is also demanding that the Geo W Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of our population be extended without elaborating how they plan to fund these tax cuts. The tax cuts cost would be 3.1 trillion dollars for the next ten years.
Could it be that the GOP wants to fund the tax cuts for the wealthy with the money they intend to take from the old people? All of a sudden all of the earlier rhetoric about "death panels" begins to make sense.
What do you think about the GOP plans for your retirement years?
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Dusk Apache Trail
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Aug 9, 2010 12:05 am
998 Views
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Last week I spent a couple of days photographing along the Apache Trail which lies northeast of metro Phoenix. On my way up to the rim that drops into the canyon below, I noticed a vantage point that I wanted to utilize at some point. I had originally planned to make a sunset exposure at one of the vantage points along the trail as I returned to my home and this seemed like a good spot.
I drove down into the canyon and made several exposures while I waited for the sun to move lower in the western sky.
As I reached the rim of the canyon upon my return I noticed that the sun was lower than I had realized. I did not have enough time to make it to my preplanned location. So instead I stopped at another high point on the road and exposed this scene with a 400 mm lens. The use of the telephoto lens accounts for the compression of the distant mountain ranges.
Post processing involved adjustments to levels and curves, high pass and smart sharpening.
Dusk Apache Trail
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A Verifiable Truth
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Aug 8, 2010 12:29 pm
902 Views
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There has been a great deal of rhetoric emanating from our conservative bloggers about the fallacy of fiscal stimulus in this economic recession. As is usual, rhetoric is all that these people offer because apparently the factual basis to support their contentions is lacking. This rhetoric is nothing more or less than a continuation of a lot of sound and fury and no evidence of factually supported substance. Those of us that don't agree with this vaporous diatribe are classified as being "to(spic)dense"...to which I would reply "no we are not too dense, instead to paraphrase Gen Geo Patton, "we have read your book".
In what follows, I will provide not only sound and fury but also factual substance for my position. I will leave it to those of you that read this to decide for yourself where the truth lies.
Let's look at the present US economic situation for what it is.
We find ourselves in the midst of a economic recession which was the result of deregulation and a lack of fiscal responsibility during the previous administration. This fiscal irresponsibility was evidenced by a war built on the pretense of "manufactured evidence" and of two tax cuts favoring the wealthy. Any fool would know that you don't cut revenues while you increase expenditures. But that is exactly what happened during the previous administration.
The Republican Party has a long history of favoring the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. That was as true of Ronald Reagan as it was of Geo W Bush. These Presidents believed that tax cuts to the wealthy would benefit the country. Yet when we look at the deficits that occurred during those administrations we can clearly see that those tax cuts to the wealthy resulted in escalating federal budget deficits and into increased federal debt.
The results of the Bush tax cuts are easily ascertainable. The following from several noted economists based upon data from the CBO...
Economists Aviva Aron-Dine and Richard Sherman point to recent data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO ), showing that "the average after-tax income of the richest one percent of households rose from $722,000 in 2003 to $868,000 in 2004, after adjusting for inflation, a one-year increase of nearly $146,000, or 20 percent. This increase was the largest increase in 15 years, measured both in percentage terms and in real dollars.". According to economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, who reviewed income tax returns for all income groups since 1917, found that in 2005, the top 1% received its largest share of gross income since 1928.
Now come again the Republicans and tell us "we would like for you to forget all about that past Republican history because that was then and this is now". My question to that is "what has changed"? Nothing, from what I can see. They are still advocating for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. What has been the result of these tax cuts favoring the wealthy? A dimishment of the size of our middle class. The stats below support this:
source ACS
• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• or the first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.
In summation what do the Republicans propose? A continuation of the tax cuts enacted under Geo W Bush. Those same tax cuts that favored the wealthiest 1% of our population at the expense of the middle class and those tax cuts that were paid for with borrowed money. Now these selfsame Republicans want to complain about borrowing, while wanting the continuation of the tax breaks for the wealthy...that appears as being just a bit disingenuous from where I see things.
The difference between Republican and Democrat stimulus spending is the point at which the stimulus is introduced into our economy. The Republicans have a thirty year history of stimulus for the wealthy. The Democrats have a twenty month history of stimulus for the middle class. Which group in your mind is the most in need and more importantly which is most deserving?
This is a case where one would be well advised to review the facts of history and to let that provide the appropriate lessons for the present and for the future.
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Keynesian Economics a Dismal Failure?
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Aug 7, 2010 8:45 am
832 Views
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A recent blog sourcing a WSJ article indicated that Keynesian economics is not effective at providing jobs for our unemployed people.
This is a questionable claim when one examines the facts.
Let me explain why this is true. First of all virtually every attempt by the present administration to effect Keynesian stimulus measures has been obstructed by Republicans. So Keynesian economics has not, at any time, been fully instituted. This was as true of the size of the original stimulus package as it was at the most recent example of this obstruction. The most recent example occurred with the proposed 30 billion stimulus for small businesses. As usual Republicans blocked passage of the measure.
Sofar as the claim that no jobs were created from the Obama Stimulus, Recovery.Gov disputes this claim reporting instead the creation of 755, 454 jobs from April 1, -June 30 2010. These are jobs calculated based on the number of hours worked in a quarter and funded under the Recovery Act. While this is not nearly what we need, it certainly is better than if nothing had been done or if the full economic remedies had been allowed to be passed.
Let's be honest for a change. When Geo W Bush left office we were losing an average of 250,000 jobs per month. That trend is not easily reversed. Furthermore during the 8 years of the Geo W Bush administration we had a net zero growth of jobs. It seems that the Republicans would like to compare 8 years to a period of less than two years... that is really not comparing apples with apples and why I say that the claims in the other blog appear to be bogus.
I see that the latest thing on the right is to compare the economic recovery from the 1981-2 recession with our current state and claim that it proves the superiority of conservative economic policies (trickle-down economics).
This comparison between these two recessions shows why I can’t maintain the pretense that we’re having any kind of intelligent, or remotely honest discussion.
The 1981-2 recession was a very different kind of event from the 2007-9 recession: basically, it was a recession deliberately created by the Fed to bring down inflation. The Fed raised interest rates sky-high, causing a plunge in home construction, which was the main driver of the slump. When Paul Volcker believed that we had suffered enough, he cut rates, housing sprang back — and it was housing that mainly drove the recovery. Reaganomics (trickle-down economics) was basically irrelevant.
The 2007-9 recession was driven by the collapse of a huge housing bubble, and the resulting financial fallout. The Fed couldn’t cut rates sharply, because they weren’t all that high to begin with; there couldn’t be a housing boom, because housing was already overbuilt. Here’s the picture...
The lower of the two charts compares the unemployment during the Reagan recession and those of the Bush/Obama recession. As you can readily ascertain the percentage of unemployed during the Reagan administration was higher that we have had in this administration. I propose to you that is due to the effects, limited though they have been due to Republican obstruction, that Keynesian economics do produce favorable results. Just imagine what these results could accomplish if they were able to be fully instituted without the headwind of obstruction from the right.
Furthermore one can see that during the Clinton administration (a period prior the the Bush tax cuts) that unemployment was lower than at those periods of the Republican tax cuts. This flies in the face of Republican claims that lower taxes lead to higher employment.
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Foto Friday - Vacation
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Aug 6, 2010 12:21 pm
907 Views
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Since Betty and I will be taking our vacation the beginning of September, this is an image that I made several years ago when Betty and I traveled to Palm Springs. This is a graphic composition from the streets of that city.
Palm Springs Three
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60minuteman and Rich 1937 This One's For You!!!
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Aug 4, 2010 4:05 pm
900 Views
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Judge Walker rules
"Although Proposition 8 fails to possess even a rational basis, the evidence presented at trial shows that gays and lesbians are the type of minority strict scrutiny was designed to protect," Walker ruled.
"Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as "the right to same-sex marriage" would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy -- namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages."
"Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians, including: gays and lesbians do not have intimate relationships similar to heterosexual couples; gays and lesbians are not as good as heterosexuals; and gay and lesbian relationships do not deserve the full recognition of society."
"Today's decision is by no means California's first milestone, nor our last, on America's road to equality and freedom for all people," said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a statement.
Wednesday's decision came after lengthy, substantive, and at times provocative legal deliberations in which an odd-couple pairing of lawyers took on the cause of overturning the same-sex marriage ban. Theodore Olson and David Boies -- direct adversaries in the 2000 Supreme Court presidential recount battle -- made the case that Prop 8 violated both the equal protection and due process clauses of the constitution. The law, the two argued, was discriminatory on the basis of both sexual orientation and on the basis of sex in addition to violating the principle that marriage was a personal liberty.
"The Supreme Court has said that marriage is the most important relation in life. Now that's being withheld from the plaintiffs," Olson said in his closing argument. "Marriage, the Supreme Court has said again and again, is a component of liberty, privacy, spirituality and autonomy."
In a major victory for gay rights activists, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday that a voter initiative banning same-sex marriage in California violated the Constitution's equal protection and due process rights clauses.
After a five-month wait, 9th Circuit District Court Judge Vaughn Walker offered a 136-page decision in the case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger, firmly rejecting Proposition 8, which was passed by voters in November 2008.
"Although Proposition 8 fails to possess even a rational basis, the evidence presented at trial shows that gays and lesbians are the type of minority strict scrutiny was designed to protect," Walker ruled.
"Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs' objective as "the right to same-sex marriage" would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy -- namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages."
"Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians, including: gays and lesbians do not have intimate relationships similar to heterosexual couples; gays and lesbians are not as good as heterosexuals; and gay and lesbian relationships do not deserve the full recognition of society."
The judgment was the first offered by a federal court with respect to laws banning gay marriage at the state level and it promises to have massive reverberations across the political and judicial landscape. The decision is now expected to head to the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court (also based in San Francisco) for appeal and from there to the Supreme Court.
In the interim, however, Walker's ruling gave gay-rights activists a second occasion to rejoice in less than a month. In July, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as one man and one woman, was also unconstitutional.
"It is not only a home run, it is a grand slam," said Jon Davidson the legal director at Lambda Legal, the country's largest and oldest LBGT legal organization. "This decisions is not going to be the end of this fight, the proponents have already said they will appeal. But I think the factual findings that the judge has made and his clear and detailed analysis will be important to frame the case as it goes up on appeal."
"This is part of an educational process that is going on in this country. When judges look outside of the political process and they go through the evidence and treat arguments as more than just sound bites they come to the conclusion that withholding marriage from same sex couples hurts them and their families and doesn't help anyone. That helps move the conversation."
"The Supreme Court has said that marriage is the most important relation in life. Now that's being withheld from the plaintiffs," Olson said in his closing argument. "Marriage, the Supreme Court has said again and again, is a component of liberty, privacy, spirituality and autonomy."
In deciding the case, Walker offered a variety of findings that may be as important as the ruling itself. Among them were the following:
• "Sexual orientation is commonly discussed as a characteristic of the individual. Sexual orientation is fundamental to a person's identity and is a distinguishing characteristic that defines gays and lesbians as a discrete group. Proponents' assertion that sexual orientation cannot be defined is contrary to the weight of the evidence."
• "Individuals do not generally choose their sexual orientation. No credible evidence supports a finding that an individual may, through conscious decision, therapeutic intervention or any other method, change his or her sexual orientation."
• "Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in the characteristics relevant to the ability to form successful marital unions. Like opposite-sex couples, same-sex couples have happy, satisfying relationships and form deep emotional bonds and strong commitments to their partners. Standardized measures of relationship satisfaction, relationship adjustment and love do not differ depending on whether a couple is same-sex or opposite-sex."
• "Marrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals."
• "Same-sex couples receive the same tangible and intangible benefits from marriage that opposite-sex couples receive."
• "The availability of domestic partnership does not provide gays and lesbians with a status equivalent to marriage because the cultural meaning of marriage and its associated benefits are intentionally withheld from same-sex couples in domestic partnerships."
• "Permitting same-sex couples to marry will not affect the number of opposite-sex couples who marry, divorce, cohabit, have children outside of marriage or otherwise affect the stability of opposite-sex marriages."
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To link to this blog (miteehigh) use [blog miteehigh] in your messages.
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