Dr. Kevin Barrett's and Silvia Cattori's recent article, Is George Bush A Psychopath? doesn't answer that question directly. There's no need to. Reading the article provides the answer: yes.
The article explains how we have allowed psychopaths to take over our government. Preventing that from happening again will require some very drastic changes.
Our Constitution has no qualifications for being president. There are three conditions, age, residency and citizenship, but those aren't qualifications. They are conditions met by several million people.
The result is that just about anyone, regardless of qualifications, who can get people to give them around $50 million can run for and probably become president. Getting the $50 million seems to be the only qualification required other than a pretty good dose of psychopathy.
The psychopaths, who are the ones who most often want to and most often attain high office, are the very ones worst and least qualified to hold those offices. People who run for president are the last kind of person you'd want for president.
Consider the current president. Just listening to George Bush is absolutely petrifying. The man is quite insane.
The irony is that the people who are actually qualified to be president would never consider the attempt to gain that office. It would be out of character for them. It would be beneath their dignity and standards of integrity to place themselves in such a position.
There should be one disqualification for being president. Anyone who wants to be president is automatically disqualified. The only people we should consider for president are those who would never consider being president.
Look at the going on two year campaign. People gouging, scratching, clawing, elbowing competitors, trying to fight their way up the greasy pole to the top, the presidency. There, they can then wave and shout, "Look at me, look at me," and unabashedly and unashamedly make complete fools of themselves and blow up their already outsized egos to the size of a dirigible.
How are we to govern in a democracy? Democracy means rule by the people. That's impossible. Rule by everyone is rule by no one. So, we choose representative democracy, instead, to represent the average person. Who can best represent the average person? The answer, unsurprisingly, is: the average person. Where's the best place to find the average person?
In my county, the average juror has to meet nine qualifications to be a juror, having to do with literacy, moral integrity, no criminal record, being of sound mind, not under indictment, and so on. The average juror is three times more qualified to be president than is required of the president.
Since about 25% of the population are psychopaths, (yes, you know one) if we held a drawing from among jurors to select a president, we'd at least have a chance of getting a well qualified, average person to represent the average person. We'd have a 75% chance of not getting a psychopath, but only a 25% chance of getting one, which is better than the 100% chance we have now.
Our electoral system guarantees that we'll get a president whose one and only proven qualification is campaigning successfully for president. That is not a qualification for president. Wanting to be and being are entirely different things.
Multi-millions are spent uselessly on campaigns to only wind up producing a psychopathic, megalomaniac as president. We've drafted millions to serve in the military, we draft millions every day to serve on jury duty. We can just as reasonably draft a president to serve in government service, the same as those jurors and those in the military. We'd have a much better chance of getting someone with at least some, and maybe even all, of the qualities needed to be president.
The Constitutional duties of a president are extremely limited, contained in just two, short paragraphs. In order to keep in touch with the average person and know what it's like for us ordinary folks, the president should have a full time, 40 hour a week job, somewhere close to the White House, so that he or she can walk to work and back. The president can do what little presidenting that needs doing after work and on week ends, and still have plenty of time left over to fool around cutting brush, playing golf and making asinine speeches.
