I was reading this interesting blog and I had time to get tot he first 2 posts (this is a long blog). In any case seeing as my academic training is in security studies with a concentration in STIA – science technology in international affairs geopolitics and geo strategy I had to comment on one thing that was stated about warfare. The quote reads:

“As Sun Tzu said, know thy self and know thy enemy. I think he understood that in war, if you look deep within yourself for strength, you will see your enemy. Or glimpses of him.”

Actually what Sun Tzu stated is more closely related to Clausewitz second reciprocal action.

“Clausewitz stated that the purpose of war is to make our opponent comply with our will. However, one’s opponent will obviously not do that unless complying to that will becomes the least oppressive of its available options. Therefore, in order to achieve the end goal of war (making the enemy comply with your will), a state must place its adversary in a position that is more oppressive to it than compliance. Furthermore, that position cannot be temporary (or at least must not appear to be temporary), because than it is likely that one’s enemy will simply ‘ride out the storm’ in the prospect of being in a better position at a later stage.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_war

We could go on and talk about national identity / national will but that will be another time.

This neo con welcomes you neo-neocon 

Take a look at Wallstreetwinnersonline.com

RickJ

In other words, conservatives favor rape.

Ah, you’ve saved me some time Grackle.

Thanks for the debate.

SDO is only one of several theories that are being used by leftist scientists to demonize the Right. One of their main research instruments is something called the Right-wing Authoritarian(RWA) scale, a scale concocted by a University of Manitoba professor of psychology, Robert Altemeyer. This scale, a set of statements, supposedly tests for RWA. It does not & that is the major flaw in all these studies. Here’s one of the statements on the RWA scale:

It is important to protect the rights of radicals and deviants in all ways.

Altemeyer evidently didn’t worry too much about semantics when he devised this particular scale item. “Deviant” is a hot button word. For most subjects the phrase “sexual deviant” would immediately come to mind. Clearly though, for purposes of the RWA scale, the word is ostensibly meant to convey the meaning of “social deviant” or “political deviant,” since the scale is not intended to test for sexual attitudes but for social authoritarian attitudes. “Deviants” has generally come to mean rapist or sexual molester — not out of the norm political behavior. Can we doubt that most subjects would be more lenient towards someone with an eccentric political philosophy than for a child molester?

The word, “radicals,” is used most often to describe groups(think: student radicals) who exhibit left-spectrum political behavior & its inclusion on the statement almost surely creates a desire to protect the group, “radicals,” with which a left-wing subject(most of whom seem to have been students!) would have a tendency to empathize & thus generally score low. Can we spell “skewed data,” class?

This disconnect between generally accepted meaning & contrary use invalidates the scale item, because it makes it impossible for the item to test what it is supposed to test.

Furthermore, let’s consider the unqualified phrase, “in all ways.” That’s a lot of ways. Could there be any “ways” in which subjects might not want to protect the rights of “child molesters”? Personally, I think the rights of child molesters should be protected but not to the extent that they would be allowed to work at day care centers & elementary schools. So I would check off “strongly disagree” & be branded a bastard by those who think like Anon.

The users of the RWA scale also make a hugely false assumption; they assume that the scale tests for a trait, “Rightwingism.” They apparently have never met an authoritarian left-winger. Readers, I have & I know that many of you have had considerable experience with leftwing authoritarianism in individuals we know & see in the news.

We know the people in China, Russia & Cuba also know about leftwing authoritarian behavior. The President of Harvard University, who was recently made to resign, has struggled with lefty authoritarian types. The phrases “political correctness” & “nanny state” were invented to describe leftwing authoritarian behavior. Some of the most authoritarian & close-minded people I have ever known have been lefties, so a research instrument based on the premise that all authoritarian types are right-wing, that any type of authoritarian tendencies manifest themselves exclusively in right-wingers is invalid ab initio.

In reply to such criticism Altemeyer attempts to explain left-wing regimes that were also authoritarian, such as Stalinist Russia & Maoist China, by declaring them to be “conservative”! Get that, Readers? If you’re a really bad lefty you’re actually right-wing. And this muck passes for research in today’s Halls of Academe …