Do US Voters have Battered Person Syndrome?

Just walking by our security guard in the Lobby. Some cable news program was playing, and Romney was ranting about Obama's plan killing 700,000 jobs. I was shaking my head wishing this election cycle were over, and trying to hold down my lunch. The security guard snickered to himself, and as I looked over my shoulder, he was shaking his head and looking at the floor. I said, "I'll be glad when this is all over." He said, "Me too, but it will just start all over again."

He was right. Why does the population always go back to the same old abuse? Why do they replace one dirty politician with another? Why are they content with the lesser of two evils, or the devil they know versus the devil they don't know?



Wiki on Battered Person Syndrome

The syndrome develops in response to a three-stage cycle found in domestic violence situations. First, tension builds in the relationship. Second, the abusive partner releases tension via violence while blaming the victim for having caused the violence. Third, the violent partner makes gestures of contrition. However, the partner does not find solutions to avoid another phase of tension building and release so the cycle repeats. The repetition of the violence despite the abuser's attempts to "make nice" results in the abused partner feeling at fault for not preventing a repeat cycle of violence. However, since the victim is not at fault and the violence is internally driven by the abuser's need to control, this self-blame results in feelings of helplessness rather than empowerment. The feeling of being both responsible for and helpless to stop the violence leads in turn to depression and passivity. This learned depression and passivity makes it difficult for the abused partner to marshal the resources and support system needed to leave

Sound familiar?

Leaders: Abuse followed by gestures of contrition.
Us: Powerless yet accepting of the blame.

Also

The abused fears for his/her life and/or the lives of his/her children (if present).
The abused has an irrational belief that the abuser is omnipresent and omniscient.

Hmmm? We are controlled by fear for ourselves, and fear for our children, and we feel like our abuser (government) is omnipresent and omniscient! We look to them for education, resources, protection, and we endure whatever negative side effects come with it, as long as we eventually get our due staples and a little concern, even if it is peppered with acid and abuse and violence.

As voters, as citizens, as "free" people, we have been conditioned to accept this abuse. We feel helpless, and dependent, and shameful that we've let it get this bad.

There is a mixture of love, training, and correction.

Eventually, the woman starts to doubt her judgment and abilities and starts
slowly to turn her "locus of control" (decision-making and power) over to the
abuser.

Eventually she enters what is called "learned helplessness", doubting herself and
believing more of what is "true" and "correct" from the abuser who uses love,
control, and correction to manipulate and mold the woman.

Finally that psychological mind-game may erupt in shouts, yells, shaming, and
embarrassing the woman. So the battering gears up. It has cycles and there is a range of battering type
behavior. (Usually only the extreme version is shown in movies).

It is psychological warfare at the worst and at the least a "control freak" who, if he
does not have his way, erupts into rage or a feeling that he is being victimized by
the inadequacy of the woman, whom he needs to bring into line.

Source

We clearly suffer in an unhealthy relationship with our government, and we are perpetuating the cycle of abuse. We are enabling an abusive, co-dependent relationship, and it is time to seek help.

What is the ultimate conclusion?

The battered person defense. There is only so much abuse a person, or a populace can take. Eventually someone gets murdered. Either the abuser, or the victim. If and when it escalates, someone has to pay the ultimate price. It is no different between abusive governments and a battered populace. One of them has to fall. Any cursory search on ATS will reveal countless threads on police brutality, government sanctioned abuse, human testing without consent, outright murder, and it is escalating with the drones, and the privacy intrusions. The populace is dying at the hands of an abuser.

So, if we skip to the back page of this all-too-familiar Novel, how does it read? Well, luckily, many have been here before us. Many have faced this evil before, and many have triumphed!

Liberty Quotes

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.
Plato

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Ronald Reagan

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Henry David Thoreau

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
George Washington

To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.
Mahatma Gandhi

And so, it is not necessarily violence that is called for, but it is a break from the norm. A break from the abusive, co-dependent relationship our populace has developed with our government. A break from the cycle of replacing one bad boss with another bad boss. A break from the nanny-state and fear-mongering. A break from the psychological warfare paid for with our own consumer and tax dollars. A break from empowering the very people that enslave us. We must change our own actions in order to change our own station in life. It is time to stop hanging our heads and saying, "At least this round will be over soon."

Thank you for writing this. It's what I wanted to write this week, actually.
I can't stop thinking about the series HEROES and the Haitian character who is able to force people to forget important experiences by traumatizing their brain tissue... yuck.

A metaphor for what is happening to the victims of espionage, capitalism, etc.

Trauma causes loss of consciousness. That is one of the reasons Americans seem so dull.
There is a kind of slavery going on in America much deeper and more profound than physical bondage.

Ever since Hitler's radio stations and the invention of the TV, people have willingly given themselves up to the propaganda.

How to tear down the "tower" of tyranny and replace it with virtue and the strength of the people?

Originally posted by KhufuKeplerTriangle


How to tear down the "tower" of tyranny and replace it with virtue and the strength of the people?

"Virtue and strength of the people"??? the masses aren't virtuous or strong and they get what they deserve.

The hero's and honorable people get swept aside and labeled as malcontents and traitors.

Nothing will change after the US elections. The electorate is so polarized that eventually there will blood in the streets, total fascism and war without end.

George Orwell predicted the world we will live in.

Dear OP,

I agree with ONLY your thread title, but NOT your content in the opening post.

Americans are most certainly the battered lot in world right now, after offering so much to our world since 1945 by forefathers.

1. Blamed for ensuring peace around the world, by devious tyrants to shift blame from themselves such as the middle east.

2. Fooled into the lies of 'globalisation' - a noble aim but perverted by the elites to reap benefits only to themselves.

3. Had savings and pension stolen outright by bankers whom had lied on responsibilities, moral and ethical standards.

4. Forced to socialize and pay for the debts of the rich, while the rich privatised their profits for sole hoarded gains.

5. Belittled by a few jealous entities as a regressing superpower in terms of tech and economics, and yet, truth was they had eat their own words when americans lost confidence, stopped buying and led to recessions by other nations, and other nations facing bullies in their backyard pleading for US help.

I can go on and on, the list is endless.

All I can say is STAND TALL, make that vote for the values that USA had stood up for since 1776 and be the leader of the free world that our forefathers had sacrificed their precious lives for next generations of americans and humanity for.

Here is the best political sign I have seen this election.
Front of sign
www.freedomsphoenix.com...
Back of sign
www.freedomsphoenix.com...
Source
www.freedomsphoenix.com...

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


Thank you!

All I can say is STAND TALL, make that vote for the values that USA had stood up for since 1776 and be the leader of the free world that our forefathers had sacrificed their precious lives for next generations of americans and humanity for.

This is the hard part! I think it goes way beyond this even. Sure, firstly we need to ignore the MSM and billion dollar political campaigns, and we need to vote for the values that the USA was built upon. Unfortunately there is no candidate with any shot to win that has those values, but early on, more people could have supported a real-world candidate instead of a pie in the sky puppet.

BUT, I think it goes way beyond that, and you touched upon it a little bit. We have to vote with our dollars. Vote with our eyes and ears. We have to take the power away from the Media, and the power away from the Global Bankers. We have to shop locally, support our friends and neighbors, listen to the people speaking in our communities, not the millionaire pundits. We have to stop watching Honey Boo-Boo, and start reading journals. We have to stop accepting sound bites, and instead look at voting records. We have to stop supporting one guy because he isn't the other guy, and start supporting a guy that we can actually get behind. We have to start participating actively ourselves, and stop being afraid to speak our minds to any one that might listen.

I'd love to stand tall once again, but you know what happens to that first turkey that pokes his head up above the rest don't ya? Seriously, I think you are right on the money. We have to STAND TALL, and we have to raise our expectations, and we have to demand more than we are used to getting.

reply to post by Rudy2shoes


LOVE the sign!

There are a couple of bumper stickers here in my office that say, "Not a Republocrat." I've got to find one of those for myself.

Addictive Relationships: Should You or Can You Walk Away

OK, this one is a bit of a loose fit, but it's still fun to compare.

So what are the symptoms of this addiction?

Ignoring the truth would be one. If you truly know that the relationship you are in is making you unhappy but make no effort to exit from it, then you are in denial and are holding yourself hostage in a situation you do not have to be in. Making excuses for your partners disappointing and bad behavior will keep you trapped and is another huge symptom of bad relationship addiction, especially if the excuses you produce do not back up the facts and are unrealistic. If you do finally build up the courage to confront your partner to leave him or her but are overcome with fear and therefore back off from the confrontation, you are a high and sure victim of addiction because no matter what you attempt, you find yourself always giving in and holding on to what you know is bad for you. Suffering from both physical and mental discomfort once broken up, unless you get back together, is yet another symptom of addiction and should not be denied or ignored.

Are we addicted to this relationship with our government? Can we walk away? Should we? Are we in denial about the true risk/reward of this relationship? When is enough, enough? Are we just afraid? Afraid of the consequences? Afraid of the unknown?