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The Watcher’s Council

Okay, who ordered an apocalypse?
Al Gore’s Mayan weathermen get it wrong again.

Alea iacta est… the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

This week’s contest ended up in a tie, between Joshuapundit’s The Newtown School Shooting And What It Should Tell Us, a theme many on the Council chose to look at this week and The Right Planet’s Talking Past Each Other, an interesting look at the left/right divide in America based on psychological types.

In accordance with our by-laws, any time there’s a tie between The Watcher and one of the other members, I happily make way for the latter. In this case, The Right Planet’s excellent look at the state of discourse in America, Talking Past Each Other. Here’s a slice:

He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not , shun him for he is a fool
He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, Teach him that he should learn
He who knows, and knows not that he knows, Wake him for he is asleep
He who knows, and knows that he knows, Follow him for he is is a leader

Exasperation is how I would describe the feelings I have right now regarding the reelection of Barack Hussein Obama, but I refuse to give into hopelessness and despair. I’m in this for the long haul. Although it may be tempting to pick up my ball and go home, I would rather make the other poor bastard pick his ball up and go home—even if it is a long, hard slog.

Yesterday, as usual, I listened to my favorite conservative talk show personalities—folks like Rush Limbaugh, Dana Loesch and local radio host Greg Garrison—for their take on the reelection of Barack Obama and what it means for “moving forward.” I also talked to family members and friends to get their views as well. If there’s one common consensus as to what went wrong for the GOP from the people I listened and talked to yesterday, I think Rush Limbaugh summed it up best: “It’s just very difficult to defeat Santa Claus.” People love free stuff. Well, I think greed and selfishness is a huge part of the problem in modern-day society. But it appears to me that there are a myriad of reasons why Obama is back at the helm again, in addition to a culture that demands instant gratification and cradle-to-grave entitlements.

I’ve believed for a very long time that liberals and conservatives seem to talk past each other. In psychology, the concept of personality types is a very important one—meaning: certain personality types are more prone to base their decision-making solely on intuition and feelings, as opposed to other personality types who may base their choices solely on cold, hard facts and logic—devoid of much emotion. In a nutshell, I’m referring to the touchy-feely type, for lack of a better term, versus the cold, calculating type. The point here is that it’s not that either personality type is wrong per se, but that they are simply different personality types who communicate in very different ways. What is required for two different personality types to communicate effectively is the need for the differing personality types to understand each other’s language.

A hypothetical example: it may be more effective to communicate with a touchy-feely personality type with pictures, song or dance, as opposed to handing them a field manual or spreadsheet. Conversely, the touchy-feely type may find communication is vastly improved with the cold, calculating type by avoiding the song & dance—just the facts, M’am.

Once again, from a purely psychological perspective, it’s not that either personality type is necessarily wrong—just different. Naturally, when communication breaks down between two disparate personality types conflict will ensue. I’m of the opinion that more touchy-feely types are attracted to the left-side of the political spectrum (democrat), while the more calculating types are attracted to the right-side politically (republican), thus the constant conflict between liberals and conservatives.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Ben Stein with G-d Help Us submitted by The Razor. It’s a masterful piece that looks at why some evil inthis world becomes a major news story while other evil is simply conveniently ignored. Do read it.

Okay, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

• *First place with 4 votes! – The Right Planet – Talking Past Each Other
• Second place with 3 votes – Joshuapundit – The Newtown School Shooting And What It Should Tell Us
• Third place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – To protect our children, it’s time to outlaw school buses
• Third place *t* with 2 1/3 votes – The Noisy Room – Stampeding Gun Control Through Crisis
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – Mass Murder Isn’t Reasonable
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Battle Of The Bulge
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Political Commentator – A Benghazi conspiracy that would make Watergate pale by comparison!
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Simply Jews – The phantoms of ceasefire, proportionality and other Middle East myths – Part II
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – VA Right! – Gun Control Can Only Go So Far. We MUST Address Mental Illness to Prevent More Killings!
• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Rhymes With Right – Texas Democrat Party Official Calls For Murder Of Fellow Americans Over Political Disagreement
• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Independent Sentinel – Bloomberg Tells Obama to Ignore Congress on Gun Control, Lott Says Arm Teachers

Non-Council Winners

• *First place with 2 2/3 votes! – Ben Stein – G-d Help Us submitted by The Razor
• Second place with 2 1/3 votes – The Commentator – Christians – The forgotten victims of the Arab Spring submitted by The Watcher
• Third place *t* with 2 votes – Sultan Knish – Guns, Guns, Guns submitted by The Noisy Room
• Third place *t* with 2 votes – Fire Andrea Mitchell – 446 school age children shot in Chicago so far this year with strongest gun laws in country – media silent submitted by VA Right!
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Cato@Liberty – An important victory for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Reason/Nick Gillespie – 4 Awful Reactions to Sandy Hook School Shooting – And Thoughts on a Better Response submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – Caroline Glick – Chuck Hagel for Defense Secretary – Bring it On! submitted by Joshuapundit
• Fifth place *t* with 1 vote – The Interpreter – The prospect of a North Korean ICBM submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Sixth place with 2/3 vote – The Passing Parade – The end of the world, sideways, sort of submitted by Simply Jews
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Badass Of The Week – Daniel Inouye submitted by Bookworm Room
• Seventh place *t* with 1/3 vote – Real Clear Markets/Bill Frezza – When Will Death Spiral States Impose Taxes On Fleeing Citizens? submitted by The Watcher

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and weigh in… don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter… ’cause we’re cool like that!