Doubling Down

I have often been frustrated by the willful ignorance and obstructionism of conservatives. I can understand defending one's point of view. I can even understand becoming emotionally invested in it. But I can't understand people, especially politicians, who are elected to serve this nation and it's people, who will lie as a method of simply winning.

Why don't these people reconsider their positions when presented with clear evidence that they are wrong?

Some of it has to do with the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. We've all met them. People who are convinced that they are surrounded by a world full of idiots, or the lazy, or the immoral. But that doesn't answer everything. People have a comfort zone, and change of any kind annoys some, and terrifies others. But that's still not the whole answer.

I'm going to posit a very loose theory attached to an example. People who believe in, say, proclamations of doomsday prophecy, instead of rejecting those notions when the day never comes, often dive deeper into those beliefs. Why is that?

Certainly, the Dunning-Kruger effect is one answer, but another lies in power relationships. When people are presented with evidence that suggests they have lost the game, what options do they have? They can reconsider, repent, and change to the winning side, effectively negating their previous existence--a total loss of power. Or, they can begin creating conditions in which the game is not over, the rules have changed, and/or the game might be subverted. I use the term "create" because that's what it is, a fiction crafted of the mind to protect one's power.

When it looks like there are no moves left on the chessboard, what is the only move left? You kick over the table. Or, you create a third dimension of movement  for pieces. Or, you challenge the legitimacy of your opponent's moves (facts).

Because of the postmodern age's focus on "relativistic truth', this seems like a fair and very effective maneuver to some. The losing party can remain alive forever in a constant stream of subversion, which, unfortunately, guarantees the halt of any possible progress.

They lie. They know they're lying. They know that we know they're lying. They don't care. I find this morally reprehensible.

Courage and Common Sense

As a liberal, I think that the Second Amendment is a good thing. Our founding fathers were worried about tyrannical government, and foreign invasions, and the Second Amendment has done an admirable job of deterring those things. Of course, at the time it was written, one man with a gun was only slightly more dangerous than one man with a knife.

Liberals aren't generally big fans of firearms. But there are those whose fear is such, that they would turn this country into an armed camp in order to feel secure.

The mistake that our founding fathers made was in assuming that their descendants would have courage and common sense.

Certainly, risk can be managed to a point (that's the common sense part). But after that, you begin trading liberty for what is often the illusion of security. As far as courage, well, the conservative obsession with the myth of a risk-free existence is indicative of a cowardice that is embarrassing to watch. Their response to that fear is to actually make things more dangerous. Maybe it's because they believe that it's not their liberty that they'll be trading.

There is no such thing as a risk-free existence, nor should there be (that way lies extinction). A certain amount of stress and strife is necessary. Of course we would prefer it to be more in the way of positive challenges. But, life is risk, and all the firepower in the world won't change that.

Big business, and the politicians that they own realized long ago that fear is a great tool for manipulating the masses.  A very lucrative tool, at that.  It's unlikely that those who crave power could ever take our freedom by force.  But they don't have to.  They have frightened people to the point where they've been gladly voting against their own interests, and selling their security and freedom, a little at a time, for decades. 

It isn't a TV show, or a video game. I can guarantee that anyone who says that they could have prevented a tragedy like this, if only they had been present and armed, hasn't ever actually had real bullets shot at them. A firefight is the very definition of chaos, and, unlike TV, someone who is mortally wounded rarely has time to deliver a moving soliloquy before a graceful exit. The end is most often horrifying, undignified, and immediate.

It's impossible for a sane person to take a human life without some damage to the psyche. It's the curse of having imagination and empathy. In times of war, or self defense, it has to be overridden, and that's when the damage occurs.

Most recover, but like any injury, there are scars.

So when I read about people like Russell Pearce, and his armchair heroics, I find it decidedly less than credible.