Aspergian Presidents

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What if suddenly there is a new law that says that presidential candidates, among lot's of things, but have aspergers syndrome. I think it would be a great idea.

People with aspergers take really seriously their interests, so imagine when they take as their interest and Robbie the development of a country.

Also AS people is less involved in personal problems with people and there is a less chance they become corrupt, due to the "naive" way of thinking, you know, an AS person will really take serious his position.

Feel free to add more reasons why an AS president would be a good idea.

How about no, for a moment? Any such rule is bound to lead to failure simply because we are not choosing one who is best as opposed to who is a best fit on a strict narrow set of criteria which has nothing to do with politics, education or ability.

Yes I'm aware of that, but basically how things are, NT's are the only ones going to reach the position, and what would be better, statistically, all presidents being AS or NT's?

Don't take this question too seriously.

I'm not to sure on that. Many socially skillful and amoral politicians in the system could go unnoticed by someone with Asperger's and end of manipulating the executive office.

I don't understand the first sentence exactly (the wording).

But, from what I got, you are saying that the situation is that only AS people can run for president. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think that would be a bad idea because it would narrow the potential candidates down to a certain number of people. Anyways I'm sure they could just get a BS Diagnosis, but there would be no reason to make the law.

It is speculated that Thomas Jefferson had AS...

I can't see an AS individual making it any farther in politics than the local level. Someone with AS won't have the charisma, dynamic social skills, or professional life necessary to put together a presidental campaign. Politics has become the most socially cognitive occupation in the world.

I can only speak for myself, but I feel that people with AS are out of tune with the social consensus on issues. I don't see an idiosyncratic AS person being accepted as a leader by the plain. Perhaps in the days before mass-media visually unappealing men like Jefferson or Lincoln could advance in politics due to sheer brilliance or family pedigree. In the last 100 years, presidential candidates have increasingly become pre-packaged products with platforms designed around extensive public-opinion inputs. Voters won't elect someone that they even slightly perceive as being weird or odd.

I think one with AS could get as far as Congress(Ron Paul,) but if one was so ambitious as to launch a presidential campiagn, it would only be a fringe effort(Kucinich or Ron Paul type push.)

It was far more possible before television than it is now. One, the people frequently did not frequently see their President or candidate, and two, the media was a lot more respectful and would not publish such things. FDR had polio and was largely confined to a wheelchair, and no one knew it outside the people who worked with him. It just was not spoken of, either by his staff or by the media. It was a matter of respect. It is thus very likely that some major player in our history had it, but it was not recorded because such things were not spoken of back then.

I have to disagree with you when you say that the media was much more respectful in past days. Newspapers as late as the early 1900's would go so far as to publish blatantly false, sensationalized stories if they thought it would sell papers. The media in the 1800's would partake in smear campaigns against candidates that make our elections seem tame. That was back in the day before political correctness, and the media would bring up all sorts of nasty gossip on political figures, especially when a paper was controlled by an opposing party.\

Any dirt in a candidate's history, such as John Fremont's bastardy was exploited ruthlessly.

In the two campiagns between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams in 1824 and 1828, partisian papers hurled insults back and forth that had no credibility whatsoever. Andrew Jackson's men asserted that strange pedophilic perversions took place in the Adams White House, and that Adams had taken a 12 year old Russian girl as a mistress when he was the ambassador to Russia. The Adams camp shot back and said that Jackson's mother was a common prostitute and that Jackson himself was a bastard mulatto. The two sides swapped outrageous claims to the point where Jackson's wife Rachel was driven to an early death because the Adams camp had accused her of being a society whore and a bigamist and she was shamed to the point of being an invalid and her health rapidly declined. The papers in that century made all sorts of baseless accusations because there was no accountability.

Even in 1884, with the campaign between Grover Cleveland and James Blaine, the smear campaigns were as dirty as ever. The Republicans dug up dirt and found out that Cleveland had fathered a bastard child, which Cleveland took responsibility for. The Cleveland campaign retaliated and accused Blaine of graft and dodging military service during the Civil War.

Warren G. Harding was the first truly pre-packaged 20th Century president. He was encouraged to run because of his good looks, amiability, and his ability to appeal to a wide spectrum of the populaton, regardless of the fact that he really had no political convictions. He would do such PR things as fly in an airplane or give a radio address in order to increase his bond with the public. Harding ran for office on a pre-constructed platform built by party leaders based on a "return to normalcy," in which the government would assume a hands-off role and be as passive as possible in regulating the economy and society. Harding was nominated in part because party leaders felt that he would do well with the new voting bloc of women. He basically looked the part of being president, as a tall, handsome, articulate man, but with no real inner substance.

There is a term called the "Warren Harding Error" that refers to how we make decisions based on appearance or "judge a book by its cover." Harding gave off a very strong first impression and was a very personable man, but the reality was that he was mentally unsuited for the Presidency.

And yes, Television has been huge factor in elections since its acceptance by society. The election of 1960 was decided by the television debates in which JFK came off as articulate and eloquent, and Nixon appeared agitated and surly. Yet, those who listened to the debate on the radio and only heard the arguments without seeing the candidates actually thought that Nixon had won the debate, but the visible contrast between JFK and the incumbent VP was enough to sway many swing voters at the last minute. JFK probably would never have won without the help of televison.

Last edited by Brusilov on 07 May 2009, 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hitler was a pretty good AS leader, in a, I'm so freaking crazy type of way.

well, people would have thought of FDR as a cripple. They thought that way then. They would have thought that he wasn't strong enough to handle the depression or a world war, so they conspired to hide it not so much as respect for FDR but out of respect for the damage it would cause if the general public saw. My family loved FDR, revered him, but his polio was barely forgiven as it was such an embarrassment.

People such as the members on this forum would have been hidden away, too. Out of respect for those normal people that did not want to see flailing ticking, stimming drooling children and adults. I know because I had a cousin that was shut up into his room with plywood on the windows and the windows nailed shut. There was the people I met in the State Institution that had been there for decades, that would have been mainstreamed in this time and age. I, myself was restrained in a full leather harness with a D ring and a leash until I was 8 years old. Those things were spoken of, but in hushed, ashamed and horrified tones.

I am glad to live in these times, believe me.

Merle

I think Hitler was probably born with AS. His teachers described him as being exceptionally bright but obstinate and lazy. Hitler described his teachers as, "erudite old apes who tormented any student mercilessly who showed the slightest hint of originality." Hitler found the sense of belonging he craved in the German Army, but with the end of WWI, his fantasies were shattered with the defeat of the Central Powers.

Hitler was offered a slot to be retained in the emasculated Reichswehr army, which was a postwar shell of the Weimar Republic and consisted of only 100,000 men. Hitler was a decorated solder who was rather highly regarded by his officers due to bravery and passion, though he was not seen as being fit to be promoted to the officer corps himself, due to his lack of leadership qualities. It seemed that after the war, Hitler was disillusioned by his country's defeat and the new liberal politics of the Weimar Republic. By 1921, he was already beginning to drift towards conservative revisionist politics and this sphere offered him much more interest than staying on as a soldier for a weak government he detested. He found a small leaderless political organization and was quickly able to dominate it by taking advantage of the dire economic straits of the time.

It is suspected that Hitler contracted syphillis which would have certainly contributed to the growing madness and increasing irrationality. As his world began to collapse he was driven by fantasies instead of rationally reacting to political realities. He found early success by getting lucky on several political gambles, and these mostly suceeded because foreign leaders and domestic opponents tried to deal with Hitler as if he was a rational individual. Hitler could cow the likes of Daladier and Chamberlain, but he was no match for the likes of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin.

Hitler failed to realize that the British and Russians had also learned from their errors in WWI. He drastically underestimated the fighting ability of the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union. He saw things how he wanted to see them, not as they really were. AS would explain his zealous and merciless persecution of the Jews and other minorites, based on a pure, passionate hatred. At the heart of Hitler's hatred of Communism was the fact that Karl Marx was a Jew. Hitler likely had several early life experiences that led to an irrational hatred of Jews, and Hitler was strongly influenced as a boy by Karl Lueger, the anti-semite mayor of Vienna.

I'm sorry but Hitler was a sociopath.

An autistic person would rather have control over themselves than other people.

A sociopath craves power and control over others.


Hitler also molded himself to be whoever he was currently around. This isn't autistic mirroring as he used it for charm and manipulation but more on the lines of sociopathic chameleon mirroring.

People are now trying a little too hard to morph extreme lack of empathy found in sociopaths along with autism. What for?

Brusilov, your omittance of details of his charisma and capabilities of speaking before thousands of people to exterminate Jews and even children that weren't deemed perfect including disabilites or weren't conforming correctly were taken from their homes, put in concentration camps, institutions and thousands killed.

I'm sorry but this is not autism.

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=5562

People with AS are often much more mechanical and technical with their thinking, which might sound great in principle but sort of removes much of the human element. Were I given power, my search for the most efficient way of achieving my aims would certainly boil down to ends justifies the means. Not that I have a problem with that, it's just the inmates of my extensive Gulag network do.

What an aspie president would be like??

Depends on the individual. Unless a label makes everyone the same but I'd choose an aspie over our world control enthusiasts anyday.

What if the aspie president believed more in the constitution because of like of rules?

What if the aspie president wasn't great socially but had the right objectives?

What if the aspie president understood our economy and knew what was good for the long run?

What if the aspie president didn't stand up for others based on their hierarchy status even if they were criminals and held them accountable?

What if the aspie president stood for justice and didn't go around harrassing people that are poor?

What if the aspie president actually set limits for those who think they are above the laws because of their titles?

What if the aspie president encouraged responsibility for actions?

What if the aspie president gave power back to the people by reminding public schools that our tax dollars also help keep them open?

What if the aspie president once again opened people's eyes to how words should not prevail over actions? Shouldn't actions speak louder than words?

What if the aspie president was hyper focused on what America needs instead of trying to control everyone else in the world?

What if the aspie president didn't spend our tax dollars on alot of vacations because he couldn't stand not being in familiar surroundings.

Individuals with AS are often quite eloquent when speaking on a topic that interests them; in Hitler's case, some of these topics just happened to be racial politics and the like. Everyone with AS is different. I engage in no amount of "autistic mirroring." Perhaps Hitler did not have AS, but there is a chance that he did. People with mild AS can remain undiagnosed for a lifetime. Undiagnosed AS could lead to a rampant hatred of others and thus develop into sociopathy. Since Hitler, if he had AS, was undiagnosed, surely he developed coping mechanisms throught his life and was able to appear normal for some time, like many AS individuals are.

I for one, can be quite charismatic and eloquent when I need to be. I have decent learned social skills that I can apply as needed. Hitler had to adapt as best he could to the world around him and either try his best to fit in or die off. Perhaps Hitler was just a sociopath. My personal feeling is that his AS as a boy led to repeated social gaffes that helped to warp his personality. Years of pain and suffering and wartime trauma led him to develop intense passions and hatred that completely changed his AS to something entirely different in his later years.

Would Hitler still try and gain control over other people if it meant that as a leader he would be able to acheive his goals of ethnic cleansing? The only reason he was even able to become a political leader was because he was filling a power vacuum and his extremism became accepted in the dire circumstances of the time.

It wasn't all about Jews. It was also about those that were deemed imperfect. Kids that had disabilities. Kids that weren't conforming.

It could be true that he developed a sociopathic outlook on life as he was struggling and put in bad situations. As far as him having aspergers, not sure. Then the question arises. Can someone who has aspergers as a child grow into a sociopath later?

The ending results were very sociopathic. He was taught how to speak before a crowd. He had a mentor. There were also people that wrote books that influenced Hitler that also had a an impact on his beliefs including "mental hygiene" and "eugenics".

Now we are at it again with all of this talk of prenatal screening for autism.

Albert Einstein once had a quote which is: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”


Well let's see. 1883, eugenics campaigns formed a large organization targetting the mentally ill and in 1913 Great Britain passed the mental defiency act and South Africa in 1916.


The movement grew to the point of involuntary sterilization of mentally ill,birth defects, alcoholics or people who were just socially unacceptable. This wasn't just Germany.


This included the blind, the deaf, anyone with any type of mental illness.

Hitler made abortion legal only for those who were racially impure (according to his twisted beliefs) or mentally defected.

I think when it comes to some sociopaths, they show it at an early age by harming animals, fire starting etc.. and then you have the ones that are really quiet keeping all of their thoughts hidden and classified as shy or not very social.

I don't believe in the theories that because someone is abused they always turn into abusers because there are people that have lived in such enviroments growing up who learned how NOT to be.

I keep hearing all of these defenses for people who murder by saying "oh it was the pornography that did it" or bring up someone's hard time in life as their reason for hurting people. I don't buy it.

Why would anyone believe serial killers for? Ted Bundy blamed everything on porn. People actually believed that. It's stupid to believe that because apart of being a sociopath is also being a compulsive liar which is not a common autistic trait.

Ted Bundy was also quiet growing up. Does that mean he was autistic? No. It means he was the type of sociopath that kept his darkness to himself.

If people see so many of these sociopathic traits as something in common with aspergers then is it safe to assume that perhaps aspergers is not really apart of the autistic spectrum but is a personality disorder?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization

So I guess the people who are now trying to reintroduce eugenics and aborting only certain kinds of babies are really just autistic people obsessed with eliminating their detested people from the gene pool.

Perhaps if that is the case, we should all be aborted because none of us are perfect enough.

Please have your humans spayed or neutured.