Liberalism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Despite the fact that I live in the Bay Area, I've never been a big fan of Michael Savage. However, I have increasingly become convinced that his conclusion that "liberalism is a mental disease" is correct. In what follows, I go one step further and attempt to show specifically WHICH mental disease it is.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth Edition (henceforth "DSM-IV") describes the clinical criteria necessary for a diagnosis of "Narcissistic Personality Disorder". In what follows, the clinical diagnostic criteria of DSM-IV are given in bold with my comments following in plain text:

Diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

How often have we seen this, not only among liberal politicians (Ted Kennedy is an NPD poster boi) but among FR trolls: the idea that since they have gone to college everyone should take their word as Gospel. And has anyone exaggerated their achievements and talents more than John Kerry and Joseph Wilson?

(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Nothing turns me off faster than some petty little liberal who believes that he holds the future of the Earth in his hand because he doesn't eat animals, or recycles his cans, or bikes to work. Liberals (to quote my best friend) want to "carve their initials in the universe".

(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Examples are left as an exercise for the reader...

(4) requires excessive admiration
Yes. Requires that one admire his politically correct stance on issues regardless of the actual concrete results of following his prescriptions...

(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
Like Nietzsche, I think I have the ability to smell whiners. And no one whines more than a liberal. They all whine about how the world doesn't take them seriously and how they should have a higher place in the world than the one they actually occupy.

(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
There is perhaps nothing that separates liberals from conservatives more than this: that conservatives will weigh the means to achieving an end and reject certain of them on the basis of "fair play" (despite the fact that the end might not be achieved) whereas for liberals it is the end that counts and any means are acceptable (including lying, exaggerating, eco-terrorism, or REAL terrorism for that matter...)

(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

Whereas the DSM-III put the clinical emphasis for NPD on the idea of "grandiosity", the "DSM-IV Revised" rightly places the emphasis here. Empathy is not sympathy. Empathy is the ability to see or perceive that others are different. Others have different life experiences and different goals. That liberals literally can't understand this leads to two typical liberal responses:

For those who really are different (Islamofascists, neo-communists, dictators), the idea that "They really are just like us! If only we could get Osama and Kim Jung-Il over for a game of pool and a coupla beers, we could work this whole thing out!"

And for those who should be like us (ie the "red states"): That we are being willfully ignorant or evil. After all, the truth is self evident (and I am the judge). So if another American disagrees with me it MUST be because he hasn't been enlightened (most likely because the capitalist media has brainwashed him) or because he willfully ignores the truth to pursue his own evil agenda (nothing is more fun that watching liberals swim back and forth between the idea that Bush is an ignorant chimp and that he is the master of a global cabal to rule the world!)

(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
No comment necessary.

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
None here neither.