Interesting - thanks for that. I’ve bitched about Poll: Polls enough around here that I’m glad there’s finally a solid, legitimate reason to shut me up! 
I went with DSM-IV diagnosis, but the poll did not specify Axis I vs Axis II. He is definitely a raging narcissist, which would earn him an Axis II diagnosis…
I went with #2. In other words, to the OP title, answer = YES.
While I’m not up on DSM-IV, I think the distinction between 1 and 2 is that by convention these crazy things don’t get an official diagnosis, because we give them a pass for reasons of cultural tradition, having to do with a long history of blending dilusion and power. Which cycles us back to Santorum himself.
I don’t see insanity, I see zealous religious fascism in Rick Santorum. I do not want a religious zealot in the White House.
Newt Gingrich probably has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Mitt Romney has delusions of believing he is a real boy.
I don’t believe he is crazy, just a very devout believer in Catholic doctrine. I don’t think “very devout” is the same thing as “extreme fanatic.”
Not to hijack, but I think the Catholic Church teaches some pretty weird stuff. And it seems like there are a lot of Catholics out there who spend the rest of their lives dealing with the stuff they were taught growing up. [/hijack]
Romney actually reminds me of George W. Bush and Al Gore and of stuff I’ve read about JFK: powerful men with powerful fathers, who seem to spend their lives proving themselves to Daddy. That scares me. (I know John McCain also had a powerful father, but I think he has more issues with his experience in Vietnam than with his father and grandfather.)
Except that Santorum is in the “extreme fanatic” category.
I wonder how many would see him as insane, or at very least as suffering from a severe personality disorder, if he claimed his inspiration for his morality came from the goddess Bastet instead of from Christianity. Either way it’s a fascist, General Woundwort-ian fascism against women especially that he justifies in the supernatural as proclaimed in a book that he’s never read (at least not as of 2005*) and which does not condemn abortion or contraception in the first place. I truly don’t think there’d be any question of his mental competence if he wasn’t claiming inspiration from an established religion, one that he turns too not just for personal comfort (and sure as hell not for notions on charity and good works) but for excuse to subjugate others.
*From this article:
The best thing about being Catholic is we don’t have to read the bible, we have someone who does it for us.
Loach, lapsed Catholic
Well, that whole “colony on the moon by my the end of my second term” certainly reeks of lunacy to me, but I’m a realist, not a fantacist. He’s fucking nuts.
On the other hand, Catholics also have the most well-reasoned, intellectual defenders of the Bible around. Too often, the Protestant reliance on Sola Fide translates into “My idiosyncratic interpretation of scripture is the only right one, cause God told me so!” Which is of course at odds with their pretense of sola scriptura, but there ya go.
I doubt anyone here would argue that he isn’t a fanatic, but I wouldn’t say he’s ill. I know people who say and think even dumber and crazier things, yet have no diagnosis.
While I’m in the small minority in thinking he’s nuts, I am glad to see I’m in the overwhelming majority (82%+ as of this typing) in thinking he really does believe most of the shit he says.
[QUOTE=Loach]
The best thing about being Catholic is we don’t have to read the bible, we have someone who does it for us.
[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately Catholics haven’t got even the beginnings of a monopoly on that one. It’s one of the great mysteries to me how many people give such credence to a book they’ve never read even though it’s available free of charge a million different places.
You can roll your eyes about that comment now, but when the economy is rebooted by our trade with the moon people I’ll bet you’ll be the first to claim you were always on board, probably from your condo in the lunar capitol of Newttown.
Fanatical believer. Of the sort that when confronted with the shock on the rest of humanity’s face after their latest action or expression sees that only as proof that they must be doing God’s work.
Of course, there’s people who post on this board who would categorically state that all who are believers are mentally ill, but that’s another half hour…
[QUOTE=JRDelirious]
Of course, there’s people who post on this board who would categorically state that all who are believers are mentally ill, but that’s another half hour…
[/QUOTE]
I don’t believe that, but I do think there’s a point at which any belief, even one with some merit (e.g. free market capitalism or harsher penalties on illegal immigration) blends with mania.
If it has merit (in your opinion) how does it blend with mania?
For example, illegal immigration - does the dealing with this issue have merit until it goes too far for your comfort? Then by your definition, it becomes ‘mania’?
“Almost everything carried to its logical extreme becomes depressing, if not carcinogenic.” Ursula K. LeGuin.
Immigration Reform becomes “maniac” when people start talking about “voluntary self-deportation,” or total deportation of all illegal immigrants, or a non-amendment re-interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s “jurisdiction” clause, or when they start talking about an electrified fence with alligators in the moat.
It’s like pornography: you know it when you see it.
I have a bit of a problem with the push poll term “extreme fanatic”. I have no doubt that Santorum has at least some deeply held religious beliefs which he thinks all of us need to live by, and that he’s comfortable cultivating believers who are even farther out there by my standards.
These of course are people who’d consider me a fanatic for helping create a society they believe is sinful and even Satanic.
Tonight I was dining with a person who wants to see Obama defeated in 2012, but is distressed by what she referred to as the “clown car full of idiots” who are the GOP candidates. Does Rick Santorum have the biggest red nose and floppiest shoes? It’s hard to tell.
A poorly worded phrase on my part. By ‘merge with’ I’m referring to ‘joins with a mental disorder that is already there’.
Example: I worked for years at homes for the mentally ill in Alabama. (I know, “how can you tell in Alabama?”, etc., but you can.) It’s a very religious climate down here in general, and it was interesting to see how that played into mental illness. Religion does not in and of itself cause mental illness, but it does merge with it. Example:
Client A is a bipolar male who has little or no impulse control and has auditory hallucinations when he’s having a manic episode. He is not religious.
Client B has the same diagnosis but is very religious.
When Client A is having an episode he doesn’t apply any type of religious imagery to it and his hallucinations might be anything from his long dead grandmother to Mr. Oleson from Little House on the Prairie (actual examples, btw), while when Client B is having an episode he sees himself as being directed by God and the voices are the voices of God or Satan or other supernatural beings. (One client I knew heard the voice of an archangel he called Cadence, but I digress.)
It’s interesting to me how some mentally ill people plug their religion into their mental illness or vice versa. While I don’t think Rick Santorum is bipolar, I think his personality, whether it fits an official diagnosis or not, has plugged into his religious beliefs to combine a rigid black-white mania that would be there if he was an atheist, a Hindu, or a Raellian, and merges in such a way that is a fusion of official dogma and personal assholery and greater than the sum of its parts.
We have separation of Church and State for a reason, to keep the State out of the affairs of religions to a reasonable level (I doubt we’d allow honor killings without a murder charge, but we also had this recent go with the birth control issue), and likewise should keep the “Church” (any religion) out of the State.
Rick Santorum would accomplish the opposite. It’s very obvious he wants to bring about a “Christian America” and force people to adhere to “superior ideals” found in Christianity.
He must not be elected.