Posted on 02/10/2012 9:37:40 AM PST by Maceman
A Breitbart.tv video was posted last night on FR under the title: "Study: Distrust of Government A Mental Disorder."
The video at Breitbart discusses and condemns a study that supposedly was published by the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (JCP), regarding a mental condition called "anti-government phobia."
You can see the video here.
At last count, the FR post had 89 responses, virtually all of which express Freeper outrage at this supposed attempt to pathologize disagreement with the federal government.
The whole thing seemed fishy to me, especially since the video does not cite or show the specific issue of JCP in which this study supposedly appeared. So I did some Googling and found numerous hits from various political websites discussing and condemning this study.
The Google links show that this study was supposedly conducted by Ivor E. Tower, MD (Ivory Tower, get it?), and appeared in Volume 11, series 3, pp. 4-5.
Besides the obviously phony name of the study author, I went to the JCP website and noted that the current volume is Volume 73, which means that Volume 11 would have been published 62 years ago.
Just to be certain that this really is a hoax, I called the publisher of JCP (Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.) in Memphis, and spoke with the Director of Operations. While on the phone, she did an author search in both JCP and also its companion publication, "The Primary Care Companion for CNS Disorders (PCC)."
Her search showed that there is not, and never has been, any author named Ivor E. Tower, and that this supposed study was never published by either JCP or PCC.
In other words, Breitbart fell for the hoax, and so, apparently, did more than 80 Freepers who responded to the video when it was posted here.
I took the trouble to research this because I do not want to see conservatives further distributing this hoax, nor publicly using this supposed study to justify their legitimate concerns about the alarming direction of the US government under the Obama administration. Doing so will only cause our legitimate complaints to be discredited by leftists in the media, academia and government who will ridicule us for making outlandish, paranoid complaints about something that doesn't even exist.
So be warned. Please do not pay any attention to this supposed study. I hope Breitbart takes it down.
Great work!!!
And Andrew fell for it?
Good work!
Nice Job. Hoax’s like this just show the depths hoaxers(leftist Cs er’s) will go to, to attack and vilify Conservatives.
—”Ivor E. Tower?”
And Andrew fell for it?—
You and I are thinking the same thing.
Lately, there have been so many attempts to call all sorts of common emotional states *pathology* that it is difficult to determine satire from reality.
I do agree that the name of the *researcher* was a giveaway.
Perhaps, the physicians and other professionals should form a network of guardians against lay conservatives making fools of themselves responding to issues they don’t comprehend? Or, maybe we’d only make things worse, because at this point Camp Treblinka in Brooklyn NY wouldn’t surprise me?
You linked to the video. Could you link to Andrew’s article? I’d like to read it.
That study might be fake, but this isn’t:
http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Mind-Psychological-Political-Madness/dp/097795630X/
Just sayin’
—You linked to the video. Could you link to Andrew’s article? I’d like to read it.—
Never mind. I was doing three things at once and my brain derailed. Only minor damage, thank God.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, you did pass your findings on to Breitbart, didn’t you?
I kind of wondered about that one. It sounded pretty much like The Onion, the way it was written. I wouldn’t put it past the APA to publish something like that, to fill up the space left when they decided that gayness was not a mental disorder. But they’d do it a bit less comically than that.
Anyway, I didn’t post a comment on it, I don’t think.
The misfortune of quoting obscure, expensive journals and being too cheap to subscribe. Now they are getting the free press and “authority” they sought in the first place. The trouble with being conservative is that logic can actually influence your opinion.
By CBS logic, the hoax goes to prove the bias of the other side. The mere fact that it was a hoax by left wing conspirators makes it true that anybody living on government grants has a bias toward the government. Where’s the witch hunt for the hoaxers? Problem Solved.
This whole incident just shows how much people enjoy being outraged at things.
No, I didn't. I thought about adding a comment, but when I looked, there were already 162 comments, and I didn't think mine would get any attention because there were so many others.
Besides, I gotta figure that Breitbart or someone in his circle would see my post here on FR.
But by all means, feel free to pass this on to Breitbart if you're so inclined.
AZ Conservative has competition.
This might be a parody of a real study that was posted in Science Daily last November, from the American Psychological Association. (Originally published in the APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.)
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111121142446.htm
Headlined by ‘Reason’ as “New Study: People Outsource Their Ignorance to Government”.
“The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.”
In related news...
Shyness, grieving soon to be classified as mental illness
It was either pulled or the search features sucks (again)
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