Psychology Professor: Liberals Who Like Fidel Castro Are 'Self-Righteous Hypocrites'
A Canadian psychology professor who once visited Communist Cuba believes that liberals who have expressed admiration for the former dictator are "self-righteous hypocrites."
Last Friday, former Communist revolutionary and long-serving dictator of Cuba Fidel Castro died in his sleep at age 90. His death was mourned by many American political liberals.
Jeremy Frimer, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg, told The Christian Post that those liberals who like Castro are inconsistent with their stated principles.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
"Many liberals in the U.S. and Canada have a high opinion of Fidel Castro because they are self-righteous hypocrites — just like most people, conservatives included," said Frimer.
"For American and Canadian liberals to hold Castro in high regard is telling of the prioritizing of their values: liberal programs over liberal principles."
Frimer went on to talk of his experiences in Cuba when he visited the Communist country, telling CP that "Castro was a principally illiberal while advancing liberal programs like healthcare, education, and wealth distribution."
"Castro was a ruthless dictator who suppressed human rights. This suppression was plainly visible to me when I visited in 2012. The Internet existed in Cuba, but only foreigners were allowed access," continued Frimer.
"Billboards were only pro-government and anti-US slogans and imagery. No commercial ads and no opposing ideas. And this was just the surface of the limits to freedom of expression, assembly, movement, and so on."
In a 2014 op-ed for The Huffington Post, Frimer describes how he used to assume that all liberals were open-minded and all conservatives were closed-minded. His trip to Cuba helped him realize that both liberals and conservatives have their own different set of blinders.
"Rather than thinking of liberals and conservatives as being fundamentally different psychological breeds, I now think of them as competing teams. ... Each has its own flag to which it pledges allegiance. And each side has its own authorities to which it demands obedience," he wrote.
In response to the death of Fidel Castro, many left-leaning individuals and politicians in America took to social media or issued official statements that critics say ignored or downplayed the Communist leader's well documented history of human rights violations.
For example, liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau garnered controversy for his eulogy calling Castro "remarkable" and a "larger than life leader who served his people."
"Commentators viewed Trudeau's statement as gushing and tone-deaf — one that ignored the Cuban leader's human rights abuses and record of political oppression. It inspired parody tributes with the hashtag #TrudeauEulogies," reported CNN.
"People mocked Trudeau penning rosy prose in honor of despots like Benito Mussolini, Kim Jong Il and Joseph Stalin."
Similarly, Rev. Jesse Jackson said that Castro fought for "freedom" and "liberation," and former President Jimmy Carter said he "fondly" remembers Castro and "his love of his country."
While noting the liberal hypocrisy in supporting Castro, Frimer also told CP that he "would caution conservatives about feeling morally superior."
"How many conservatives, who claim to stand for family values, shrugged off Donald Trump's bragging about sexually assaulting married women in the 'Access Hollywood' tape?" added Frimer.
"Study after study emerging from moral psychology is finding that liberals and conservatives are similarly prone to the same self-righteous and hypocritical psychological tendencies."
