Ahhhh projection

Ever wonder why we so often see the most anti-gay crusaders wrapped in a rainbow colored scarf of scandal? Or why the Family First© types end up in foreign countries sleeping with all types of people other than their wives? Is it the liberal media? Nahhhhhhh. My guess is we are dealing with the fascinating idea of projection, where we project our own fears/desires on others.

It is pretty simple. Ever date someone who constantly accuses you of cheating? She is cheating on you (I use "she" here because, well, I don't really have a reason. WAIT!!! I am projecting!!!). Or at least will when she can get away with it. Not because of some clever tactic of being on the offensive at all times in order to keep you defending yourself so you don't see her cheating. It's because she keeps projecting her own desires to cheat on you, on you. Why face the fact that she wants to cheat when she can take the moral high ground and think that you are the one who wants to sleep with someone else?

Nothing is more comical than neoconservative projection. Well, it would be comical if the Soviet style lines of people afraid of their own shadows subscribing to it weren't so sad. Ok I am being mean. And I'm biased. Instead of me just casting aspersions, let's take a look at some classic neoconservative projection.

Newt Gingrich is a smart guy. Take a look at a recent speech. While watching this, keep projection in mind. If you are afraid, others are afraid. If you are bellicose, others are eager to fight. If you are gay, we need to stop the gay agenda. On and on.

"Many of our elites around the world are utterly incapable of telling the truth. And utterly incapable of standing up for the truth. And utterly incapable of having the courage of confronting evil no matter how obvious it is."

Here is where I get confused. Is this projection or irony? We lied our asses off in order to start a preemptive war with the middle east. Not just the usual political way of lying where you are just ambiguous enough to suggest inferences in a certain direction without making a statement that can be called a lie. I am talking, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." I am talking, "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon."

The courage of confronting evil? Something like sitting down and talking with them? Would that count? Hmmmm. Maybe someone is too afraid to sit down with the president of Iran. Because talking with a member of the axis of evil will never work.

Let's keep going.

"We need to draw a sharp line that says if you have an evil regime and you engage in evil things, we are not going to let you fire off weapons which could have catastrophic results. Period."

Again, irony or projection? What would you consider a country that kidnaps people, gives them no rights, and tortures them in secret places around the world? Ok, you can see right through this question. I'll stop. Guantanamo Bay. Black ops. The US is not an evil country. Some of our policies sure as hell look like it.

"The decent, the honorable, and the law abiding cannot survive by applying the same standards to the evil, the aggressive, the criminal, and the vicious."

Riiiiiight. It's others that are evil, aggressive, criminal, and vicious.

This is not a diatribe on how the US is evil. If you get really offended by this, I think you missed the point. People of my political persuasion project as well. Know the person who thinks everything is an example of racism? That's right.

When it comes down to it, being an armchair internet psychologist makes politics much more fun. Next time you hear bombastic speech from one side about the other, think about who they are really talking about. If you ever really want to know something about someone, ask them what they think about others.