This thread has become as entertaining as the 'liberal thugocracy' thread. :)

NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER


Diagnostic Features:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a condition characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, need for admiration, extreme self-involvement, and lack of empathy for others. Individuals with this disorder are usually arrogantly self-assured and confident. They expect to be noticed as superior. Many highly successful individuals might be considered narcissistic. However, this disorder is only diagnosed when these behaviors become persistent and very disabling or distressing.

Complications:

Vulnerability in self-esteem makes individuals with this disorder very sensitive to criticism or defeat. Although they may not show it outwardly, criticism may haunt these individuals these individuals and may leave them feeling humiliated, degraded, hollow, and empty. They may react with disdain, rage, or defiant counterattack. Their social life is often impaired due to problems derived from entitlement, the need for admiration, and the relative disregard for the sensitivities of others. Though their excessive ambition and confidence may lead to high achievement; performance may be disrupted due to intolerance of criticism or defeat. Sometimes vocational functioning can be very low, reflecting an unwillingness to take a risk in competitive or other situations in which defeat is possible. Individuals with this disorder have special difficulties adjusting to growing old and losing their former ?superiority?.

Comorbidity:

In this disorder, sustained feelings of shame or humiliation and the attendant self-criticism may be associated with social withdrawal, depressed mood, and Dysthymic or Major Depressive Disorder. In contrast, sustained periods of grandiosity may be associated with a hypomanic mood. Anorexia Nervosa, Substance-Related Disorders (especially related to cocaine), and other Personality Disorders (especially Histrionic, Borderline, Antisocial, and Paranoid) frequently co-occur with this disorder.

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:

Believing that you're better than others
Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
Exaggerating your achievements or talents
Expecting constant praise and admiration
Believing that you're special
Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
Taking advantage of others
Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
Being jealous of others
Believing that others are jealous of you
Trouble keeping healthy relationships
Setting unrealistic goals
Being easily hurt and rejected
Having a fragile self-esteem
Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/nar...CTION=symptoms

This is exactly right. Put aside your opinion of Radar's personality and think about it for a minute.

Natural rights. It's self explanatory.

It's true if you believe in the theory of yourself as the most important entity before all others.

I am still unconvinced that rights exist as anything other than a human construct. Those rights which we have constructed and agreed upon (as a society) I deem worthy of defending and I see them as an integral part of 'civilisation' ... but they are something we, as humans have come up with and applied to ourselves.

So what you're saying is that the first humans had no rights until they became civilized enough construct them? That makes no sense to me. How is it that they were able to live and be free if they didn't have the right to?
Oppression of rights is a human construct. Privileges are a human construct.

They lived and were free (presumably) because they lived and were free. Rights have nothing to do with it. Lions live and are free. Mammoths lived and were free. Humans lived and were free. It has nothing to do with rights. We're just biological systems.

[eta] Humans had the capacity to live and be free, rather than the right.

It's exactly the same thing.

Until someone (society/government etc) comes along and violates your rights... you have the right to live and be free and do whatever you want that doesn't violate someone elses rights.

Construct any notion of rights you like. Society treats you according to its definition, not yours. You can say "help, my rights are being infringed upon!" And you may well be right, by some knowable, provable philosophy. But your cries are meaningless to society, because society simply does not give a shit.

Having the rights is the really easy part -- if they're natural, you're born with them, mission accomplished. You can say that was the important part, but if you're, say, killed, the very notion that you would have any rights died along with your brain tissue. Defending the rights, now that's the tough part.

Why just today a guy was ruining my right to travel down the road at any speed I like, by driving in front of me at a slower speed.

So I shot him. Why take chances?

I lean towards Dana's thinking on this. We never knew what we had (rights) until we began to have societal constructs such as government to restrict our freedoms. Only then were we even able to define "rights" in the sense we discuss here. The "rights" described in the Constitution are another thing which man uses to describe where government can and cannot intervene.

Why do we (european settlers) make restitution to the native peoples of our lands? Is it because we realize we violated their natural rights?
They certainly didn't have any rights constructed within our society.... so fuck em right?

The US constitution defines some of the rights that government may not infringe upon, and others that it may protect. It does not grant any rights.

We have not made any restitution to anyone as far as I know.

Driving is a privilege, not a right. Didn't you take driver ed? ;)

Dana -- that's precisely it, very well stated.

Jinx -- if we did make restitution, it would probably be because the powers that be decided that this restitution was good for society in general. Oppressed people do not make good consumers for the retail industry.

What restitution? we put them on reservations and gave them shit. Now some are getting payback in the form of tax free gambling houses. But I still don't see that we gave them any form of restitution.