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Pornography’s Effect on the Brain, Part 2 of 2

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(Go to Part 1 of 2)

4.  PORN ADDICTION AND FRONTAL  LOBE  SYNDROME

It seems that frontal lobe damage, caused by long-term porn addiction and the compulsive masturbation that accompanies it, will give rise to a constellation of behaviors called “frontal lobe syndrome”. These include four main behavior patterns:  (1) Impulsive behavior with little regard to consequences. (2) Compulsive behavior, often leading to total loss of control. (3) Emotionally labile behavior, i.e., sudden and unpredictable mood swings. (4) Impaired judgment, leading to disastrous decision making.

All these conditions, it is now clear, are caused by frontal lobe damage. Though they can be produced instantaneously by a car crash or other serious trauma to the brain, they can also occur as a gradual process by the habit of compulsive masturbation to pornography over a long period of time. “Nemo repente fuit turpissimus,” the Roman satirist Juvenal noted long ago. “No one became extremely wicked all at once.” It happens by slow degrees, step by painful step. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny. Whoever said that was certainly on to something. Read more

Pornography’s Effect on the Brain, Part 1 of 2

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NEMO REPENTE FUIT TURPISSIMUS
“No one became extremely wicked all at once.” — Juvenal, Satires

The aim of this essay is a controversial one: to provide evidence in support of the thesis that porn addiction, especially when accompanied by compulsive masturbation over a long period, alters brain chemistry and can eventually produce brain damage. This is not a conspiracy theory. It is an intellectually defensible thesis for which there is now a growing body of scientific evidence.

Perhaps the quickest way to tame and tranquilize an unruly nation is to turn its citizens into sex addicts: for just as children are easily taken in by predators who tempt them with candy, most people are only too pleased to live under governments that offer them the seductive pleasures of porn: that is to say, cheap and easy orgasms as substitutes for happiness.

Sex addiction, especially when fueled by internet pornography, has been likened to crack cocaine or heroin addiction, only much worse. It allows its victims no respite. It is a sickness of the soul that drives many to suicide, transforming its worst sufferers, like Ted Bundy and Gary Bishop, into serial killers. (See here and here). Read more

Maureen Dowd on Slithering Neocons: Why Isn’t the ADL Outraged?

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Maureen Dowd recently wrote a column dripping with what is routinely labeled “anti-Semitism” by the ADL and other guardians of political correctness  (“Neocons Slither Back“). Most commentators (see here) focused on her claim that Dan Senor is Mitt Romney’s guru on all things related to Israel. Jeffrey Goldberg weighs in:

Maureen may not know this, but she is peddling an old stereotype, that gentile leaders are dolts unable to resist the machinations and manipulations of clever and snake-like Jews. (Later, Hounshell wrote, “(A)mazing that apparently nobody sat her down and said, this is not OK.”)

This sinister stereotype became a major theme in the discussion of the Iraq war, when critics charged that Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, among other Jewish neoconservatives, were actually in charge of Bush Administration foreign policy. This charge relegated George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Stephen Hadley and the other Christians who actually set policy to the status of puppets.

Of course, no one would say there was anything sinister about saying that Karl Rove had inordinate influence on Bush on domestic issues. It’s only a problem when a Jew is said to have influence; the implicit (ridiculous) theory is that no Jew could ever have a strong influence on a president, especially on issues related to Jewish ethnic interests—prototypically Israel. As usual, the actual facts are irrelevant. Simply saying that a Jew has such influence crosses the line—even though Dowd never mentions that Senor is a Jew. Read more

As The War Drums Beat

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I contemplate my recent trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran and ask myself who wants war between America and Iran. I quickly surmise that it is not the American people, nor the Iranian people, but globalists (international bankers and their multinational beneficiaries). They control Israel, the American media and most of our politicians…and by extension our foreign policy.
My journey to this exotic and little understood land began with an invitation to “New Horizon – The First International Independent Filmmakers Festival”. It was a conference and festival held in Tehran from September 2nd through September 7th. Filmmakers and intellectuals from around the world attended. It was one of the most stimulating experiences that I have ever had and an effective bridge between diverse cultures and perspectives – with the purpose of promoting truth, justice, liberty, and peace.
This initiative was undertaken, not by America or other world leaders, but by a country unfairly besieged with sanctions and threats of war. My observations were in stark contrast to the perceptions of most Americans. What I experienced was a devout country with a love of God, family, and nation – and an uncompromising respect for the noblest of human endeavors. Read more

The Man Who Kissed the Pope’s Ring

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In the spring of 2011, while living in Rome, I met the Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican. I was attending a speech he was giving in a Franciscan monastery overlooking the ruins of the ancient Forum. Earlier in the day, he had given a similar speech before Pope Benedict XVI and his advisors. Then, that evening, he appeared before a group of about one hundred Catholic guests and clerical members of the Franciscans, an Order historically associated with the Spanish Inquisition. Ambassador Mordachay Lewy was presenting his government’s position on creating peace in the Middle East, which would come through its plan for a two state solution. Although the final plan could not yet be made public, he promoted its inevitability with words backed by the full weight of Tel Aviv, a world power more formidable than the Vatican, even if not defended by its vaunted Swiss Guards. Everyone, he said, in the Israeli and Palestinian governments interested in peace had come to understand that there was no other alternative than to have two separate states – one for the Jews and one for the Palestinians.

In order to bring this about, he said, there were many political obstacles to overcome. But, first it was necessary to distinguish between the possible and the impossible. Everyone must realize that the ideas of “peace” and of “justice” are two separate ideals. The Ambassador invoked various philosophical arguments to support his and his government’s belief that the two words must be considered in two different ways and in two separate spheres. Peace, he said, is for humans and was meant for this world. Justice, he said, is God’s alone and meant only for the next. Behind his presentation, for those aware of the Palestinian side of the equation, were the unspoken and regularly smothered words – “Right of Return.” Read more

Nature and Nurture Revisited: A Chronicle of the Landmark Minnesota Twin Study

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On August 15, 1992, Arthur Jensen delivered a well-received speech to a packed audience at the Centennial Convention of the American Psychological Association in Washington, D.C. Jensen’s invited address, “The Cyril Burt Scandal, Research Taboos, and the Media,” focused on the investigative findings of two meticulously researched books (Robert Joynson’s The Burt Affair and Ronald Fletcher’s Science, Ideology, and the Media: The Cyril Burt Scandal) which all but exonerated Cyril Burt, the eminent British psychologist, of allegations of fraud in his study of identical twins reared apart.

Burt’s detractors seized on suspicious statistical anomalies to claim that he fabricated data in his twin study findings. Insufficient details of the collection and analysis of data on Burt’s part helped fuel the speculation that Burt fudged some of his work. Joynson and Fletcher independently concluded that the totality of the evidence of fraud was based on conjecture, innuendo, and exaggerations. Both authors presented a compelling case that Burt’s critics intentionally set out to discredit one of the most distinguished reputations in the annals of British psychology. Fletcher and Joynson marshaled enough counter evidence to show that Burt’s detractors rushed to judgment, made claims that were eventually found to be untrue (such as missing assistants), and omitted crucial evidence, some of which was intentionally destroyed, that may have exonerated Burt of misconduct.

The International Ballroom West of the Washington Hilton Hotel was packed with several hundred APA attendees, including a number of noteworthy psychologists. Jensen showed photos of Burt from his own collection, relayed what it was like to work as Burt’s understudy, and summarized the case for Burt’s defense. He explained some of the animosity of Burt’s detractors and the likely personal and political motivations for discrediting such a distinguished psychologist. Read more

The High-Mindedness of the British: New Zealand and the United States

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Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies, New Zealand and the United States.
David Hackett Fischer
New York: Oxford University Press, xxv + 629 pages.

I have to start off by saying that David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America has shaped the way I see American history and much else. He provides a compelling account of how the four main British-derived groups (Puritans, distressed Cavaliers, Quakers, and Scots-Irish borderers) differed and their struggle for dominance in America. To me as an evolutionist, a big part of the attraction is that Fischer roots these cultural differences in the distant past—in English pre-history. Thus the tendencies of the two main groups, Puritans based in East Anglia and the Cavaliers in Southeast England, go back to the murky period of English pre-history. These types (Puritans relatively egalitarian, Cavaliers elitist and hierarchical) indicate very strong cultural differences and thus likely to be influenced by ethnic-genetic differences.

Fairness and Freedom continues his comparative approach, this time comparing two different British-derived societies, New Zealand and the United States. The basic thesis is that New Zealand political culture is much more infused with “an abiding concern for fairness” (p. 14), while the U.S. is more focused on an ideology of individual freedom.

Interestingly, until the mid-20th century and then doubtless because of Western influence, there are no words for fairness in languages apart from English, Danish, Norwegian, and Frisian. Moreover, the words for fair and fairness have no Greek or Latin roots, but are nevertheless traceable to an Indo-European origin where they appear only in the above group of Northern European languages (and notably excluding German). The original Indo-European word meant “to be content,” later giving rise to the Gothic fagrs, meaning pleasing to behold and often connoting blond hair and fair complexion. It eventually came to mean something that could be agreed on by most parties—e.g., a fair price. Read more