The Authoritarians by Bob Altermeyer. A psychological researcher spends a lifetime following up the thread left by researchers like Stanley Milgram's (Obedience to Authority) and lays out once and for all the who, why and how of the authoritarian personality type.
They're always with us, but at this point in time in America, they're clearly at the helm so this is a very relevant - and riveting- book.

If you want to know why people who listen to Limbaugh and Hannity are the way they are and why they're never going to change and why reasoning and evidence is totally irrelevant to the 30% of Americans who fit this profile, then this does more than argue some likely hypothesis; it proves the author's point through the application of the scientific method . Fascinating just for the reveal of his methodology, to see how a scientist even approaches something as amorphous as "authoritarian personality type. This book actually changed my life.

And here it is for free:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

Excellent points! The crux of these matters is structural. We need to create and utilize structural barriers to abuse, not personality-based ones.

Yeah, it's not true. We have a functioning government, it's just doing stuff some people don't like. YOUR JOB is to change people's minds about stuff so people vote for people who do what you want. It's not fast, it can indeed go off the tracks and in the end no one is totally happy and everyone is somewhat pissed off. It's called LIVING WITH OTHER PEOPLE. This is the reality of living with other people.

  If you can't convince people you're right, and you still want to force the government to stop doing shit, then can always try civil disobedience ala MLK. That works, eventually. If you just want to force the government to do something because you think it's right then YOU'RE the asshole. That's how democracy works.

Just the way people forget that freedom comes at the price of some insecurity so also people LIKE YOU forget that democracy comes at the price of unsatisfactory outcomes.

There is no other way. There is no wonderful group of people who will do the right thing and leave it at that.

Well here's at least one reason this is happening. Essentially when confronted with a question of the form "should we permit X to do Y upon Z in order to keep us safe ?" the individual answering that question effectively considers whether or not they'll ever be Z. No federal judge is ever going to be stopped at an airport . No federal judge is ever going to have his laptop searched at the border. In fact none of the rulings federal judges make will ever apply to them personally or anyone with the power to pick up a phone and call that judge to complain that X is about to do Y to them.

Essentially the way judges hear the proposition is: "would you like us to increase security for you, sir?" They know if for some ungodly oversight they were ever actually asked to turn over their laptop to a customs agent, one phone call and it all goes away before the agent can boot their Windows 8 (this is who's buying that dog btw ) installation and that agent would soon be manning the un-airconditioned , 3x5 border booth in 105 degree heat watching over some dirt road in Tumbleweed Town, Texas.

So get real. You're asking people To Whom Nothing Adverse Is Permitted To Happen if they would like ditch the Constitution within 100 miles of any border so that he and his can feel in some nighty-night, all-tucked-in way "safer".

I am sure the nation's judicial benches are deep with such people. I am sure that people capable of considering the effects of their decisions on a nation and on its people are few and far between. Last week's judge was citing as supporting evidence the 9-11 commission report even though the 9-11 commission report said, substantively, exactly the opposite of what he claimed in his judgement it said.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131230/11062925713/judge-who-ruled-favor-nsa-relied-911-report-that-doesnt-even-mention-what-he-claims-it-does.shtml

This is what is populating our benches. How bad is it? We're about to find out. .

I've made my point that Christians have no business banning books owing to their having used the Bible to murder millions, a fact that ought to serve, if we're banning books, in having it banned everywhere.

Of course I am not interested in banning books or persecuting authors of books , denying them access to libraries and readers. Only chirstians are.

No matter how you twist and turn the facts are the facts. Christians are trying to get books banned because they feel those books represent in some faint way some alternative worldview other than christianity. This is what they do. This is what they've done throughout history whether it's the catholic church going after Galileo or the Scopes trials or evolution or the assault of education by local school boards crammed with fundies. Christianity attacks other people who don't believe as they do. It's an aggressive religion which attacks civil society every chance it gets. Christianity attacks everything not in accord with its world view, as we clearly see here and it is no different from fundamental Islam in this regard.

you'll openly mock and incite hate towards christians where the bible may condone though the religion itself condemns, where as you get offended on the muslims behalf if someone speak against them even though they actively do what is written in their religion.

And I did this where exactly? maybe you should actually read threads you participate in. If you bothered to do that you'd see my link to :

www.thereligionofpeace.com/âZ

above.

Yeah defending banning books IS attacking people defending against censorship. I am not making myself a victim. The victims are the authors and would be readers of the banned books. The victimizers are the fundie and evangelical christians who are using religion and the bible once again to attack civil society.

Yeah but that's not my point. It's not that Christians have historically fought wars generally which disqualifies them from attacking just any idea or books, it's that they've done it citing specific passages from their holy book as the REASON and JUSTIFICATION to kill those people. There is a direct connection between their book and the way they used it to deaths of millions. Yet they want these other harmless books banned.

Sorry , that point couldn't be clearer. You don't see it? Really? I mean, really?

It amusing to see the enemies of freedom, intellectual expression, art, culture and secular society feel compelled by this topic to leave the safety of the masks of sanity they normally hide behind and attack people decrying book banning.

Please. Continue. Out yourselves. One and all. Come. Come.

Oh so my point is false. Sorry i have to pin you down here. The rightness of my point is NOT obvious. My point being that these fundies are banning books which have never inspired anyone to harm anyone, unlike their holy book and the reason they're doing this can only be because , like all fanatics, they hold as the only good the advancement of their religion against their "enemies", who need to be persecuted- thrown out of schools, libraries, society if they can manage it.

That point is not obviously true. That is your assertion?

No , dude. My post was meant to point out two ironies. One was the the fundamentalists pushing for this round of book burning, oh sorry banning, hold as holy a book which has been used to justify death unlike the books they're trying to ban.

The second irony is that this jihad against everything not Christian is EXACTLY the kind of totalitarian impulse which, left to its own devices, produces historical body counts in the first place.

It's not that I didn't have a worthwhile point to contribute. It's that the dogmatic defenses your mind reflexively raises against any point that contradicts the world view you've adopted are once again distorting things which are perfectly clear to everyone not so encumbered.

Yeah just the opposite . . no one argues about Islamic fundamentalism because it's in no way controversial : we all agree it's barbaric. And? And you point is? Our legislature isn't filled with psychotic amoral predators like Michelle Bachman and Ted Cruz who espouse a Christian Dominionist theology and INTEND to destroy our government through any means at their disposal whatsoever , the government shutdown being just the LEAST of what it is they've said they want to do to this nation.

Come on, that list leaves out everything that happened before the 20th century !!! When did religion rule the roost for most of civilization and what percentage of the available people did wage war with and on?

Point is, the fundies going after House of Spirits (!!!!????) have no moral basis to start in after other people's literary works. In fact their DECLARING WAR on these peaceable books is just the latest manifestation of their bellicose, intolerant "kill everything that disagrees with us" mentality which is just exactly what produces a "body count" in the first place. .

It just so happens that history has not deposited these book burners into a political climate and historical time in which they have the power to KILL these authors. But they're working on it:

http://www.publiceye.org/christian_right/dominionism.htm

Crazy straw man. The POINT is who are these Christian Evangelicals to be going after peaceable books like these when their OWN "holy book" has been used to justify mass murder repeatedly throughout history and has a body count that reaches into the stratosphere?

Hard to believe anyone in this thread is so stupid so as to miss the point I made.