The Nappy Cat Chronicles

Marin Cogan writes:

Democrats may scratch their heads over why [the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine] has lately become a right-wing obsession, but the paranoia is not without precedent. The prospect of being in the opposition often brings out the worst in conservatives–paranoia and self-pity. Plus, when the conservative coalition seems threatened, there’s no better way to unify the party than scaring up liberal bogeymen.

One thing that Democrats need to keep in mind is that, with the Republicans now the minority party, it will not be the typical liberal bogeymen syndrome, per se. Though all traditionalists are progressive when convenient (and vice versa), right-wing traditionalists believe that left-wing progressives are exceptionally coercive. Obama has already been framed as the farthest left senator in the history of everything. Hence, the coercive progressivism meme coupled with the center-right nation myth will become the frame through which right-wing pundits will view any federal intervention that the Democrats will support during the next four to eight years.

Dan Shelley, former assistant program director at Milwaukee’s WTMJ, on right-wing talk radio:

To begin with, talk show hosts…are popular and powerful because they appeal to a segment of the population that feels disenfranchised and even victimized by the media. These people believe the media are predominantly staffed by and consistently reflect the views of social liberals. This view is by now so long-held and deep-rooted, it has evolved into part of virtually every conservative’s DNA.

To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered. The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners.

This enemy can be a politician – either a Democratic officeholder or, in rare cases where no Democrat is convenient to blame, it can be a “RINO” (a “Republican In Name Only,” who is deemed not conservative enough). It can be the cold, cruel government bureaucracy. More often than not, however, the enemy is the “mainstream media” – local or national, print or broadcast.

Michael concludes:

Ultimately, attacking people based on broken parables is much more attractive than actually getting people to think about issues. Why? Cognitive dissonance. You already have the answers you want, now you just look for ways to prove it.

I agree. Moderately intelligent people do this to exaggerate the depth of their intellectual despair. I’m for moral relativism to the extant that the guy in the room with his finger on the trigger is for it. However, staining a 13th Century legend with digital ink is unbecoming. It’s also unbecoming to use a story based upon German emigration and prosperity to paint Obama supporters as fools.

The New York Times on how websites can encourage delusional thinking:

“The views of these belief systems are like a shark that has to be constantly fed,” Dr. Hoffman said. “If you don’t feed the delusion, sooner or later it will die out or diminish on its own accord. The key thing is that it needs to be repetitively reinforced.”

…

Dr. Bell and some other mental health professionals say that even if the users of such sites are psychotic, forging an online connection to others and being told — perhaps for the first time — “you are not crazy” could actually have a positive effect on their illnesses.

“We know, for example, that things like social support, all of these positive social aspects are very good for people’s mental illness,” Dr. Bell said. “I wouldn’t say it’s entirely and completely positive, but it can be positive.”

…

“These people lead quietly desperate lives,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. “And if they are reinforcing each other and pulling people toward something, if they are using the Internet and getting reinforcement, that’s good.”

There may be something to this:  These folks seem content with themselves as well as this guy and whoever wrote this.

Though I’m not a fan, Newsweek has what appears to be the definitive guide to Election ‘08. For just a few hours of reading, the seven chapters cover what a few days of high school history will never (and don’t you secretly want to be smarter than a 16 year old?):

• Chapter 1: Barack Obama: How He Did It
• Chapter 2: John McCain: Back From the Dead?
• Chapter 3: The Long Clinton-Obama Siege
• Chapter 4: McCain Camp Retools, Targets Obama
• Chapter 5: Obama Sweats the Clintons, McCain Gambles on Palin
• Chapter 6: Battling it Out in the Great Debates
• Chapter 7: The Final Days

This series answered a few of questions of mine that had not been adequately answered during the election.

Chapter 4: I don’t know much about Lindsey Graham, but are the rumors true? Is he really a turdbucket? All signs point to “yes”:

Sen. Lindsey Graham was watching on TV. McCain’s friend, who had sharp political instincts, saw an opportunity. As he later recalled, he thought, “Oh, boy,” as he reached for the phone to call McCain. “Look at this!” he exclaimed to the candidate, who was also watching. “Who the hell does this guy think he is? And who are all those Germans, and what are they cheering about?” To Graham, Obama’s speech was all about Obama, grandstanding for a bunch of foreigners.

When did the McCain campaign realize that their lethargic candidate needed a boisterous running mate?

McCain himself seemed grouchy and unhappy on the campaign trail. He was doing fewer town-hall meetings, and his aides, upset when no one laughed at the candidate’s tried and-true jokes at one particularly sorry affair in Belleville, Mich., decided they’d better start packing the hall with McCainiacs. (The audience was full of undecided and skeptical voters; the campaign had been trying to make a point with the press and Obama by daring to plunge the candidate into true arenas of democracy—i.e., before unscreened voters.) Before long, McCain’s “town halls” were almost as tame as George W. Bush’s in 2004, when the president spoke to by-invitation-only crowds.

With the odds overwhelmingly stacked against him, how did Obama win? Obama was a viral candidate infecting hearts and minds as well as Youtubes and cellphone. Future candidates are not aware of this yet—the dust has yet to settle—but, from now on, all campaigns will have to be viral to some degree.

Tap the top button, “call friends,” and the software would take a peek at your phonebook and rearrange it in the order that the campaign was targeting states, so that friends who had, say, Colorado or Virginia area codes would appear at the top. With another tap, the Obama supporter could report back essential data for a voter canvass (”left message,” “not interested,” “already voted,” etc.). It all went into a giant database for Election Day.

Early that summer, the campaign made the unorthodox decision to announce its vice presidential pick via text messages sent directly to supporters. It wasn’t just a trick to do something flashy with technology and attract media attention. The point was to collect voters’ cell-phone numbers for later contact during voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts. Thanks to the promotion, the campaign’s list of cell-phone numbers increased several-fold to more than 1 million. (Among the registrees: one Beau Biden, son of Joe.)

“I don’t care about online energy and enthusiasm just for the sake of online energy and enthusiasm,” said Chris Hughes, head of New Media’s social networking. “It’s about making money, making phone calls, embedding video or having video forwarded to friends.” There was nothing starry-eyed about Hughes, who had been the Harvard roommate and later partner of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and made his first millions before he was 24. His goal was to make old techniques—like call centers and getting polling information to voters—more efficient. “When computer applications really take off, they take something people have always done and just make it easier for them to do it,” he said. “And maybe bigger.”

During the primaries, the sight was familiar at vast Obama rallies. Before the candidate appeared, a campaign official would come onstage to urge audience members to pull out their cell phones to call or text their friends and neighbors.

Chapter 5: Though McCain seemed to dislike pandering to them, how beholden to the “religious right” was his campaign?

But when McCain brought up Lieberman’s name at a secret high-level meeting held in Sedona, Ariz., to consider veep choices on Sunday, Aug. 24, his top aides balked. They warned that McCain’s support among evangelicals was already soft. Lieberman was pro-choice on abortion, and a pro-choice pick would deeply antagonize the religious right, maybe even provoke a floor fight at the convention. Pollster Bill McInturff told the group that a pro-choice running mate had the potential to cause a 20-point drop in support among McCain’s core voters. A small uptick in independent voters or crossover Democrats wouldn’t begin to make up the difference. It would be very difficult for McCain to heal the party in the two short months before Election Day.

Chapter 6: Why didn’t McCain look at Obama during the first debate?

Why, one aide asked him, did you never look at Obama? Because you told me not to! McCain retorted. It was true. McCain’s debate coach, Brett O’Donnell, had noted Obama’s tendency to look directly at an opponent while attacking, and he had instructed McCain not to get sucked in by meeting his gaze. But McCain had taken the advice a little too literally. “We didn’t tell you not to look at him at all,” one aide chided him.

How did the McCain campaign perceive a Clinton vice presidential nomination?

He was relieved to face him as the veep choice, and not Hillary Clinton, whom the McCain camp had truly feared. At the vice presidential debate on Oct. 2, McCain was delighted to see that Sarah Palin had irritated Biden. Watching the TV with some aides, McCain exclaimed, “He looks like an angry old senator!”

Why was the McCain campaign so sensitive to the charge that they were running a divisive campaign? Because they held back the really divisive stuff (at least until the last hour).

McCain had set firm boundaries: no Jeremiah Wright; no attacking Michelle Obama; no attacking Obama for not serving in the military. McCain balked at an ad using images of children that suggested that Obama might not protect them from terrorism; Schmidt vetoed ads suggesting that Obama was soft on crime (no Willie Hortons); and before word even got to McCain, Schmidt and Salter scuttled a “celebrity” ad of Obama dancing with talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres (the sight of a black man dancing with a lesbian was deemed too provocative).

Do you remember in 2004 when people would tell you that you don’t vote for another president when there’s a war going on?  (By the way, at the time we still had the same two wars we have now.)  How did I know this?  Because people at my work place told me this.  Why?  I don’t know, maybe it’s because they are superstitious beings, otherwise known as humans.

At it’s core, this is once again about cognitive dissonance.  We might be better off if we all admitted that we did it, but good luck trying to get Americans to be humble and/or knowledgeable about psychology.

A friend of mine even used the parable of recently saying “I wonder how that pied piper thing worked out.”  This was an implicit attack on Obama, which is fine…I guess.  One of the problems is that the argument could have easily been made for any other politician who won by any margin ever.  More problematic though is the fact that he misuses the parable as well as makes an implicit “Obama will kill your children” remark.

I’ll let Will handle the psychological hand wringing as to how someone could let such an implicit remark become so normal – and to them – non offensive.

However, it’s important that we remember the parable of the Pied Piper.  You see, he did his job for a town by getting rid of its rats.  The town subsequently did not pay him, and he came back and took their children.  With no memory of even a story like the pied piper, it’s no wonder why people make remarks that we are bound to repeat history.

It’s sad most of all because these remarks end up being so personal.  One could easily make a remark against Obama normally, like a human.  Here, I’ll show you because I actually wonder about this.

I wonder how a President Obama will reconcile spending increases with an ailing economy.  I worry that it may be detrimental to the future solvency of the United States.

Wow, how hard was that?  And in asking such a legitimate question, I made a point that everyone can take seriously and think about.

Ultimately, attacking people based on broken parables is much more attractive than actually getting people to think about issues.  Why?  Cognitive dissonance.  You already have the answers you want, now you just look for ways to prove it.

Source: All photographs obtained via Daylife.

Source: All photographs obtained via Daylife.
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Pennsylvania + Ohio. This is going to be huge.

Source: All photographs obtained via Daylife.

Source: All photographs obtained via Daylife.

Source: All photographs obtained via Daylife.

Source: All photographs obtained via Daylife.

Source: All photographs obtained via Daylife.

I agree that the two major political parties are, more or less, “two sides of the same coin”. I’m aware that the bases of both parties are apt to exaggerate the importance of their preferred issues. I believe that the two-party system is a byproduct of thought reduction and profit potential.

Frankly, I don’t care about any of that.

I consider myself both nihilist and existentialist. I have full knowledge that meaning manifests from within and that meaning from without is forcibly injected and robs an individual of his agency. But at this stage of my life, if I am mentally and physically prepared to create life, I must be equally willing to create meaning.

And the fairest way to create meaning for another is to remove from daily life those forces that seek to strip all of humanity of independence, reason, accountability, and dignity. Even if my action, voting Obama, is ultimately a symbolic gesture, influence is won through argument informed by intelligence and experience. Apathy attracts no one.

These soul-stifling forces represent a pernicious infection that has rotted the already decomposing core of the Republican party. Off the top of my head, there are four:

• The first force is American exceptionalism. In short, American exceptionalism is the belief that, because American intention is fundamentally good and part of God’s destiny for all, all any action taken on behalf of America is fundamentally good. Incidentally, this sort of exceptionalism is, by and large, not unique to America. This pernicious belief facilitates, perpetuates, and expands economic and battlefield warfare. Though by nature of the position Obama may make the same decisions as McCain, Obama at least acknowledges that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
• The second force is Christian Dominionism. Seeing the world through us-verses-them lenses, Dominionists intend to take over all federal and societal institutions. They received a huge boost from Bush II:  In exchange for access, the fundamentalists who beat the Dominionist drums, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Tony Perkins, convinced their flocks to forgive and forget the atrocities committed in the name of American exceptionalism. Their march will continue unabated during a McCain presidency.
• The third force is anti-intellectualism. What began as resentment towards the liberal-bourgeoisie and the effete elite inevitably became a lifestyle of anti-intellectualism championed by the populist vein of the McCain platform and the fervid proletarian right. This is evidenced by the absurd promotion of the “Joe the Plumber” stereotype and a vice-presidential candidate who, in all probability, has read neither an essay nor an article pertaining to the First Amendment since high school.
• The fourth force is the easy production of manufactured and contradictory character assassinations. The blog, The Toot, cleverly summarizes the charges leveled against Obama:  “Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hilter Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary friends from - wait for it! - the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties.” Also, “a chicken shit”. I am under no illusion that an Obama presidency will put an end to as ad hominem fallacy; I believe that, when confronted by an abundance of absurd accusations, future candidates will be able to defend themselves with a reference to the Obama success.

The following is a letter I sent to my friend regarding a co-worker of his who is an “extreme conservative” that is in favor of putting through Colorado’s Amendment 48, which would give a fertilized egg the same constitutional rights as you, or me.

Greetings,

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.  I believe I can help you find another piece of perspective.

I’d like to address your co-workers questions first.  While I understand that the question of moral relativity is important, it is however philosophical and based on perspective.  Debate on that issue would simply be a form of mental masturbation.  That said, I will still try to address the topic later.  Firstly, I’d like to discuss the proposed amendment in Colorado “to basically redefine personhood to give the exact same constitutional rights to a fertilized egg (regardless whether or not the egg has implanted itself) as is given to anyone living American citizen.”

In fact, I’ll actually give you a conservative argument.  Or, at least, what conservative used to mean 15 years ago.  In fact, the topic of the word “conservative” is itself a debatable and educational topic on linguistic evolution and the ability for people to change definitions over time.  However, that is irrelevant to your inquiry, and we may discuss etymology some other time.  Regardless, on with the argument of fertilized egg citizens.

I’ll let Andrew Sullivan illustrate the broader problems with this:

So let’s follow the logic of the argument.  If zygotes are full-fledged human beings, then there must surely come a moment – the most miraculous moment in human existence – when life actually comes into existence.  Science however, suggests that even this line is somewhat fuzzy. [MK: Here Sullivan uses Steven Pinker's biological expertise to explain the fuzziness regarding how long it takes for the  genes to separate from the egg]

…

The statistics vary because of the miniscule phenomenon involved, and the immense difficulty of measuring it with any precision, but the scientific literature estimates that from 30 to as much as 50 percent of zygotes perish of their own accord, failing to develop beyond the most primitive of stages to anything remotely recognizable as a developing baby.  Spontaneous abortion of zygotes, blastocysts, and embryos is routine in the human reproductive cycle.  It is far more common than successful pregnancy.

Now there is, obviously, a big distinction between the deliberate decision to end the development of a zygotic human being and the fact that nature allows them to perish in huge numbers,  But the context should surely make us pause.  In his book It Takes a Family the pro-life senator Rick Santorum argues that “as a result of abortion for more than thirty years, over a quarter of all children conceived in America never took their first breath.”  Strictly speaking, he is mistaken.  As a result of all abortions – spontaneous and procured – well over three quarters of all children conceived in America never take their first breath.  If God is so careless with his creation at this stage of development, one might ask why humans should have much higher standards. [MK: bolding mine]

…

On this basis, we all have countless siblings whose lives lasted only a few minutes hours, days, or weeks, only to perish inside our own mothers’ bodies…If you believe that each one of these doomed zygotes is as valuable and sacred a human person as you or I, the tragedy is so vast it almost defies comprehension.

…

But if “natural law” appeals to our human sense of reason, then we can at the very least say that our intuition strongly resists equating the life of a zygote with that of, say, a two month old fetus, or even a premature baby born at the earliest boundaries of viability.  We can say that reasonable people, all of whom take life and human life very seriously, can disagree on the line between human life and human personhood.  The basic context for this disagreement is the inexorable fact that in the extremely hazardous journey from conception to birth, death is as much natural rule as it is the exception.  And the more insistently we look for the magic moment when personhood begins, the more elusive it becomes.

Andrew goes on for quite a while.  And so could I, but I believe the point is made.

This won’t convince your co-worker though.  For her, choice is the issue.  Intent, as it were.  That is essentially the essence of the fundamentalist psyche.  It’s strength lies not in argument, or reason, but in absolutes.  I discussed this with my peer, and psychological expert, Will, and what we found on top of the resolute nature was the utter need for people to feel that they are doing all they can to stop what they see is an injustice, or enact what they see as protection.

Naturally, this begs the broader philosophical question that you ask me.  “Who or what defines what is morally right or morally wrong?”  As I stated, the efforts in answering this are irrelevant, but altogether not worthless.  That is to say, it’s at the least, a decent thought experiment. 

I have my genes and my cultural upbringing to thank for my distinctions of what is right and wrong.  One need look no further then developing and third world nations to see how people can make very immoral, or unethical decisions.  

While many people would expose the thought I just expressed as moral relativism, I simply see it as an off shoot of what is obviously cognitive dissonance.  Our minds have generated fantastic ways to make us be able to live with the decisions that we make, even when we receive information that shows the possibility of a bad choice on our part.

All that said, a real conservative argument, like the one Andrew Sullivan shows us above, allows us to at least reason, and hope that we can come to an agreement on some sort of fact.  Unfortunately, as I stated, there are a few problems that you will have with your co-worker.  She believes it to be fact that a zygote may as well be a two month old fetus.  Since there is no argument with a concrete “2+2=4” solution, there will be no dissuasion for her.

Also, to simply take note of your final remark, I agree that I too despise moral statism.  But that said, I am not a fan for much of what the government does.