This is a ferociously anti-feeling culture. As the insensitive chronically accuse the sensitive of being WRONG — of being overly sensitive rather than acknowledging it is they who are without sensitivity and that is a character defect. The people who brought you and/or enable economic rape and now literal rape without any evidence of moral conscience.

Empathy generates partnership and cooperation. Obviously not a priority in this country without pity. McChrystal so strategic keeping his operation away from the IRC.

There is kool-aid drinking enmeshment-bonding and “empathy”, the capacity to put oneself in another’s situation. Not bond with other insensitives and demonize others for being different and inconvenient.

And cronyism certainly trumps empathy time and time again. As well as opportunism, self aggrandizement.

I am so sick of the flood of Judge shows, from Judy to others, who show about as much empathy as Simon Cowell. A culture of authoritarian followers stuck in a Stockholm Syndrome who give power away by admiring and identifying with the aggressors.

a) There is no need for courts, because there is no need to evaluate the law in the context of human endeavor. We should all just accept what legislatures tell us to do, and reorganize our moral compasses accordingly.

b) There is no need to overturn Roe v. Wade, even if abortion *is* murder. If there is no need to be empathetic, then there is no need to care about the unborn. The law is the law, so therefore just accept it and quit being all squishy-feely-empathetic.

Amazing how fragile “conservative” principles are once they come up against real world experience.

When I heard Darth’s comments re: the gay, I immediately thought of Nancy as well.

Went for the whole conservative “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” ride until Ronnie was stricken.

Now comes my WSJ this morning with the moronic headline on the op ed page “Why the Health Care Rush?”

Beyond the burning stupidity and callousness of that headline, I can think of 50 million (and growing) reasons why.

The problem is collective thinking. We think that because millions believe in this or that, this or that is right. If someone wants to spend their life high on heroin they should. If someone wants to drop to their knees in prayer, I say go ahead. I don’t want them to pull me down alongside them or to penalize me should I resist.

Empathy is nice and may even be comforting for someone on the receiving end, but it does not matter. As long as each of us can do as we please with our lives without harming the planet or anyone else your feeling for me has no bearing on what I choose to do. The problem is that we don’t have a society permitting that kind of freedom. We may say empathy is the reason the judge approved the program assisting poor persons. The trouble with our society is that too many are forced to depend on the kindness of strangers. We need a society that empowers everyone and makes empathy irrelevant.

http://progressnotcongress.org/blog/?p=1465

Foothillsmike brings up a interesting point. Being a conservative myself, I can empathize with the killer of the abortion doctor, but I certainly don’t empathize with the doctor himself. Do I think the killing of that doctor is right? Of course not!

Another example from my past was my terminally ill grandmother (cancer). In here 2nd to last day of life, she was in enormous pain as the pain killers were becoming less effective, and something stronger was needed. In one of her bouts, she begged my father to put a bullet through her head (father was a police officer)in order to get the pain to stop. As much as one could empathize with that situation, you can’t have people going around making judgments on whether or not someones level of pain warrants a ‘bullet to the head’. If this were to occur, most people with chronic depression would be gone.