The Mental Illness of American Conservatives

Earlier today, I responded to a tweet posted by the actor James Woods. He tweeted that Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is a patriot. He believes this because Sessions has promised to go up against the “radical” state of California for its admittedly self-destructive policy on immigration.

I responded by saying Sessions is no patriot. He wants to violate states’ right and allow the federal government to dictate what that state can and cannot do. I also mentioned that Sessions wants to prosecute and imprison cannabis users and steal property without due process of law.

Is this what conservatives believe?

If so, they’re as authoritarian as their liberal counterparts. As I have argued, when it comes to the state, there is little difference between so-called conservatives and liberals. These people have yet to understand that the state does not protect natural rights—the rights you are born with—but turns it into a special concession granted by government (usually with a fee attached). If you refuse this arrangement, you may end up dead—nowadays, resisting arrest often results in murder by police—or at best you will be locked in a cage.

For me, supporting this authoritarian structure is a form of mental illness. It verges on masochism.

In his tract, Listen Little Man, the psychologist Wilhelm Reich argues the “little man” invariably supports authoritarian figures and practices. The state didn’t take kindly to this critique. Reich was locked in a cage—he didn’t get permission from government to build his orgone accumulator—and he died there. He was basically sentenced to death for going up against the state and its preferred monopolies.

Woods didn’t respond to my tweet. He probably gets thousands of responses and does not have the time to answer each. No doubt, if he bothered to read it, he wrote me off as a liberal nutcase, or worse—a libertarian.