Is the myth of left-wing authoritarianism itself a myth?

I am glad I have lived to see this. Psychologists have long been unable to find Leftist authoritarianism anywhere despite the huge example of the late unlamented Soviet regime.

I spent my 20 year research career from 1970 to 1990 pointing out the absurdity of saying that conservatives are the only authoritarians. But I was essentially ignored.

So I am glad that the the group of psychology researchers below have taken up the cudgels. Reality may dawn in the minds of most psychologists yet

Lucian Gideon Conway III et al.

Abstract

Is left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) closer to a myth or a reality? Twelve studies test the empirical existence and theoretical relevance of LWA. Study 1 reveals that both conservative and liberal Americans identify a large number of left-wing authoritarians in their lives. In Study 2, participants explicitly rate items from a recently-developed LWA measure as valid measurements of authoritarianism. Studies 3–11 show that persons who score high on this same LWA scale possess the traits associated with models of authoritarianism: LWA is positively related to threat sensitivity across multiple areas, including general ecological threats (Study 3), COVID disease threat (Study 4), Belief in a Dangerous World (Study 5), and Trump threat (Study 6). Further, high-LWA persons show more support for restrictive political correctness norms (Study 7), rate African-Americans and Jews more negatively (Studies 8–9), and show more cognitive rigidity (Studies 10 and 11). These effects hold when controlling for political ideology and when looking only within liberals, and further are similar in magnitude to comparable effects for right-wing authoritarianism. Study 12 uses the World Values Survey to provide cross-cultural evidence of Left-Wing Authoritarianism around the globe. Taken in total, this large array of triangulating evidence from 12 studies comprised of over 8,000 participants from the U.S. and over 66,000 participants world-wide strongly suggests that left-wing authoritarianism is much closer to a reality than a myth.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368351727_Is_the_myth_of_left-wing_authoritarianism_itself_a_myth

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Democrats’ ‘Equity’ Scheme Threatens America’s Suburban Idyll

The "affordable" mandate is of particular concern. Welfare housing of any kind tends to bring crime in its wake.

If you’ve worked hard to afford a suburban house with a patch of lawn where your kids can play, you’re under attack.

The Biden administration and Democrats in New York, Connecticut and other states are fighting local zoning laws in order to build high-rise apartment buildings with “affordable” units in tree-lined, single-family neighborhoods.

All in the name of equity, meaning everyone can live in a tranquil suburb, whether they’ve earned the money to pay for it or not.

The Biden administration announced January 19 that it will require all towns across America to submit “Equity Plans” showing how they will make it possible for low-income people to live there by providing affordable housing, transportation and other resources.

Towns that don’t meet the cookie-cutter requirement for economic diversity will lose federal funding.

No one’s denying there’s a housing shortage. Governor Hochul is pushing some reasonable proposals such as allowing mother-in-law apartments and relaxing environmental restrictions on residential building.

Yet Ms. Hochul’s biggest proposal, the Housing Compact, is another misguided attack on local control and single-family zoning.

It will compel each town and village in the New York metro area to increase its housing stock to meet a uniform, state-imposed target and rezone for high-density housing — apartment buildings — within a half-mile of every MTA train stop.

Say goodbye to quaint downtowns lined with two-story buildings and older houses.

If a town fails to meet state targets, the Compact will allow developers to build big in defiance of local zoning boards in almost all cases.

Ms. Hochul is seeking legislative approval for her plan by April. Suburban homeowners are battling a powerful alliance of real estate developers in it for the money and social justice warriors determined to end single-family zoning.

Local control will be obliterated. Albany will call the shots on what your town looks like, how much traffic there is and ultimately what your home is worth.

Slate Magazine’s Henry Grabar bashed Ms. Hochul’s critics as “a band of recalcitrant, remorseless ne’er-do-wells.” He’s wrong. Their concerns are legitimate. For most people, their home is their biggest asset.

Opponents of single-family zoning are also playing the race card. ERASE Racism’s president, Laura Harding, says she’s fighting for a Long Island “free of structural racism and de facto segregation.” The same phony pretext is being trotted out everywhere.

Racial discrimination is abhorrent and should be prosecuted. But as a Brookings Institution analysis of the 2020 census shows, race isn’t a barrier to suburban living. Blacks are moving to the suburbs at a faster pace than whites.

Anybody can be suburban. It just takes money — especially in Connecticut. In 2017, developer Arnold Karp purchased a colonial house on tree-lined Weed Street in small, ultra-wealthy New Canaan.

There are no commercial or multifamily buildings on the street. He now wants to build a five-story, 102-unit apartment complex with 30 percent set aside for affordable housing.

Weed Street is only a 10-minute drive, or a 17-minute local train ride, to Stamford, a midsize city where the quantity of affordable housing (nearly 16 percent) exceeds state guidelines.

Ensuring a supply of affordable housing within a region is more reasonable than demanding every town alter its character.

Local officials explain that New Canaan’s six-person fire department doesn’t even have hoses or trucks to fight a fire in a building as big as Mr. Karp’s design.

Weed Street neighbor Chris DeMuth Jr. warns Mr. Karp’s plan “is to cram over 300 people into a lot currently occupied by a single-family home.”

“If they destroy Weed Street, they could come for your neighborhood next,” says a flier Mr. DeMuth circulated to his neighbors.

In fact, Connecticut’s Senate Democrats announced they’re making housing equity “in every community in the state” a top priority.

https://www.nysun.com/article/democrats-equity-plans-threaten-americas-suburban-idyll

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Our 21st-Century Klansmen No Longer Have Sheets and Hoods

By Gary Franks, who is black

I have had classic KKK experiences. Here are some examples:

- As a youngster I was a victim of the KKK when they burned a cross in front of our home. They also shot dead a dog on our lawn thinking it was ours, placed a dead possum that was dripping with blood wrapped in a white sheet in our mailbox for me to pull out, and made incessant and life-threatening phone calls (saying they wanted to blow up our house).

- As a 23-year-old working for a Fortune 500 company, the wallet of my boss accidently fell on the floor at dinner, revealing his KKK membership card.

- Then as a congressman the local Grand Dragon fulfilled his pledge to leave the state upon my election.

But during these episodes and after, I would always remember my mother's advice, "Do not allow a few bad apples in the barrel to cause you to throw out all the apples. Most of the apples are good! Proof? I was elected six times in a 92% white area including three times for Congress.

For the record, the Ku Klux Klan lynched over 4,000 Black Americans, killed a countless number of others with nearly no convictions, while terrorizing millions. Due to slavery, many states in the South were majority or near majority Black before the domestic terrorism of the Klan caused the great migration of Blacks from the South to the North and West.

It is time to take the sheets and hoods off the 21st-century Klansmen.

Believe me, the Klan has been evolving. Unlike many Black Democrat leaders who are still fighting for some of the previously won Civil Rights, like voting rights, that does not interest the Klan anymore. They know the truth. Blacks are voting in record numbers and nothing will prevent that, other than political apathy. Seeing Black elected or appointed officials fail is their wish.

With strategic help from bad and misguided Black people (similar to the help Africans gave to European slave traders) the Klan can get what they want without burning crosses.

Black leaders often side with promoting Black abortions that, percentage wise, dwarf white abortions. This must bring a smile to the Klan which wants fewer Blacks on the streets anyway. There is power in numbers.

Racists are pleased that they do not have to outwardly fight against desegregating schools anymore. Black Democrat leaders have been inadvertently blocking school integration by blocking "school choice" for decades.

While donning expensive tailored suits, racists can keep Blacks trapped in poor areas via unfair employment practices. With no school choice, it would force Black people to go to failing neighborhood schools.

They can achieve their objectives today through the "Jussie Smollett model." The Black actor claimed racist MAGA supporters had beaten him. But prosecutors later proved that Smollett had paid for the beating as part of an elaborate charade to gain attention.

Today the big charade is over issues that would cause all the 1960s Civil Rights leaders to roll over in their graves. Imagine the time and energy companies have spent on name or logo changes, like getting rid of Aunt Jemima pancakes and syrup or Uncle Ben's rice. Add to that all the fuss over removing statues or memorials in various cities. Who cares? Will any of that produce even one long-term good paying job for a Black person to be able to take care of their family?

And of course, there is the fallacy of being "fair" to Black people which is tantamount to "hurting" white people. This is the true mantra of the Klan, which they call being "woke." It is not a term that would roll off most Black peoples' tongues. However, getting just one Black face to espouse warped ideas on race is enough to promote the Klan's points, thanks to the media.

The Klan's trick is to make you believe they do not exist. They work through others now to achieve their objectives which have not changed. They still abhor Black people, believe they are inferior, and that they should not have the same rights as whites.

They want good white people to be outraged over these "made up causes and demands" just like Smollett wanted voters to hate Trump because of his "beating." It is highly likely that funding comes from the bad guys themselves or Klan sympathizers just like Smollett funding his own little charade.

The more outrageous they can depict so-called Black movements like "Defund the police," the more normal white people would side with them and against Black people.

Remember, it is and always will be "all about the Benjamins." Unfair employment practices are the premier and preferred methods to "kill" Black people in the 21st-century's Klan playbook, especially the best and brightest.

For Biblical backup, here is Sirach (Chapter 34, verses 25 & 26): "To take away a neighbor's living is to commit murder; to deprive an employee of wages is to shed blood."

This ultimately hurts America. Good white people and our government must stand up and engage!

The Ku Klux Klan and their sympathizers, whether in white robes or Brooks Brothers' suits, are good at what they do. They have centuries of practice, and they train their next generation well.

https://townhall.com/columnists/gary-franks/2023/02/02/our-21st-century-klansmen-no-longer-have-sheets-and-hoods-n2619057

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Race Everywhere on the American Left

Recently an unarmed 29-year-old African American, Tyre Nichols, was brutally beaten to death by five Black Memphis police officers. They were charged with murder. All belonged to a special crime unit known as the Scorpions.

Both the victimizers and victim were Black. The Memphis police chief is Black. The assistant police chief is Black.

Nearly 60 percent of the police force is Black. The white population of Memphis is about 25%.

The now-disbanded Scorpion unit of mostly Black officers was created as a response to grassroots appeals to stop spiraling crime in mostly Black neighborhoods.

The death of Tyre Nichols could be attributed to many things: a basic lack of humanity on the part of the officers, poor police training, lax administrative supervision, and lowered hiring standards.

Instead, no sooner was the beating death announced than accusations of "systemic racism" surfaced.

Van Jones, the former Obama Administration green czar and recent recipient of Jeff Bezos' $100 million "courage and civility award," pronounced on CNN that the Black police oppressors were acting out white racism.

Some claimed that charging the five Black officers with murder was itself racist. Others alleged that creating the unit in the first place to reduce Black-on-black crime was racist.

Yet, when everything becomes racist, then nothing in particular can be racist.

About the same time, the city of San Francisco, along with the state of California, was exploring paying out huge cash reparations to its African-American residents for the ancestral sin of slavery.

That evil institution was abolished some 158 years ago through the Civil War that killed some 700,000 Americans.

Yet California was always a free state with no history of slavery.

No resident of America in six generations has been either a slave or slave owner.

Such multibillion-dollar payouts apparently are to be funded by a nearly bankrupt state facing a $25 billion budget shortfall.

How do we quantify either current eligibility or culpability in multiracial California where 27% of the residents were not born in the United States? Whites make up only 35% of the state's population.

College campuses increasingly greenlight racially segregated resident housing.

These reactionaries seem eager to return to "separate but equal" apartheid, supposedly outlawed nearly 60 years ago by the 1964 Civil Right Act.

A recent National Association of Scholars study found that of some 173 schools surveyed, 42% provided racially segregated residences. Some 46% offered racially segregated orientation programs. An overwhelming 72% hosted racially segregated graduation ceremonies.

So-called "safe spaces" on campus exclude students on the basis of race, especially whites who are reduced to stereotyped members of a toxic collective.

Race-based admissions have transmogrified from proportional representation - the entering class should reflect roughly the racial make-up of the nation - to reparatory or compensatory admittance.

So, for example, Stanford University's incoming class of 2026 lists white students at 22% of the enrolled, roughly one-third of their percentage of the nation's general population.

Ironically, current racial engineering resurrects the old quota systems used in the past to discriminate against Jews.

"Whites" - to the extent we can determine any race in an intermarried, multiracial society - do not fit the now ossified definition of an exploitive majority.

They no longer even compose a majority in most major American cities and in some states.

They rank well behind many non-white ethnic groups in terms of per capita income and millions of working-class Americans certainly don't fit the tired stereotype of "privileged."

In racist fashion, white males are often smeared as exhibiting collective "white rage."

Yet they commit suicide at double their demographics - and more than twice as frequently as Blacks and Latinos.

They were also killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq at twice their numbers in the general population.

In terms of hate-crime offenders, whites are demographically underrepresented. The most overrepresented victims of hate crimes are whites of Jewish background.

Whites commit violent crimes against those of different races at rates below their percentages in the general population.

In sum, class, not race, remains the best litmus test of being underprivileged in America. It is no longer synonymous with race.

No wonder the identity politics industry now strains to attach prefixes such as "systemic" or "implicit" to "racism," or "micro" to "aggression," purportedly to ferret out bias that otherwise is not apparent.

Pause to reflect that America is the only successful multiracial constitutional republic in history.

To survive in an increasingly dysfunctional and hostile world abroad, the unique idea of the United States requires concord.

But national cohesion is only possible through citizens subordinating their tribal interests to a common culture. Only then do they cease being automatons of warring tribes and collectives.

https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2023/02/02/race-everywhere-n2619055

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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