There’s a True Sheriff in Town

 

A couple of days after the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson AZ I was walking through the supermarket where I normally shop, observing the other shoppers going through the mundane motions of daily living and I wondered just how many of them really cared that Gabby, as she is affectionately called, was laying in a hospital bed fighting for her life. I wondered if they had an iota of an inkling of just how volatile the situation is in this country.

An article recently written about a cognitive study done by researchers at The University of Michigan- as reported in the Boston Globe newspaper- highlighted some of the findings of that study. The major point was that:

Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

The article goes on to say:

In light of these findings, researchers concluded that  a defense mechanism, which they labeled “backfire”, was preventing individuals from producing pure rational thought. The result is a self-delusion that appears so regularly in normal thinking that we fail to detect it in ourselves, and often in others: When faced with facts that do not fit seamlessly into our individual belief systems, our minds automatically reject (or backfire) the presented facts. The result of backfire is that we become even more entrenched in our beliefs, even if those beliefs are totally or partially false.

And here’s the cherry-on-top to sum it all up:

“The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” said Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher of the Michigan study. 

During the news conference following the shooting Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was stating facts when he said:

“I think it’s time as a country that we need to do a little soul-searching, because I think it’s the vitriolic rhetoric that we hear day in and day out from people in the radio business and some people in the TV business…that may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.” 

What Sheriff Dupnik was basically saying is that the confrontational, inflammatory, and hateful language present in the political discourse in this country these days has created the type of climate that can produce murderous acts such as the one that occurred in Tucson.

I am one of the many people who agree with him totally and see his candid and heartfelt remarks as heroic, especially in light of the pervasive cowardice and complicity that is being shrouded as objective commentary. Watching pundits and politicians tip-toe around the issue has been a deeply sickening experience. And watching individuals from the right engage in pathological partisanship is both infuriating and terrifying.

Anyone that even suggests that liberals or the left have engaged in the same level of divisiveness as the right is either irreparably ignorant or consciously wicked. The evidence to the contrary is so absolutely overwhelming that the contrast wouldn’t be worthy of discussion if the national psyche wasn’t so grotesquely fractured.

One question that I haven’t heard either asked or answered in the aftermath of the shooting is this: Can anyone truly say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jared Loughner was not influenced in any way by the vitriolic rhetoric that Sheriff Dupnik was referring to? The answer is no, and that should be enough to trigger at least a modicum of human remorse or compassion. But human remorse or compassion is not the reaction coming from the right.

But that’s no surprise. As Mr. Nyhan pointed out, it’s absolutely threatening to admit that you’re wrong, especially when you’re engaged in a titanic struggle for control of the government of the most powerful country in the world. The question is: How can a society realistically hope to survive if facts and truth cease to have value to its citizens, especially those that have power or influence?

Again, thank you Sheriff Dupnik for telling it like it is.

My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this horrible tragedy, their families, and everyone affected. May God have mercy on this nation.

Infected by the talking points puppets

As I watched Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and Republican Representative Eric Cantor being interviewed on MSNBC last night I got the feeling that I was watching a really bad “B” horror movie, the type that comes on well after midnight when most people are asleep.

These two politicians’ robotic repetition of  inane and unconscionable talking points were such an affront to human intelligence that at one point, while he was interviewing Ms. Bachmann, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews was compelled to ask her “Are you hypnotized?” I suppose that he couldn’t ask her if she was high. Of course the video of that exchange has gone viral.

But that’s not the only thing that has gone viral. The Matthews/Bachmann spectacle is indicative of what the political discourse in this country has degenerated to.  Though last night’s results were by and large typical by mid-term election standards, it’s obvious that the contagion of regurgitated rhetoric was prevalent enough to instigate a power shift in Washington that will more than likely result in gridlock over the next two years.

So, in all likelihood the mangled mindset that is illustrated in the “Hi, I’m a Tea Partier” video will play a major role in paralyzing the government of the United States, negatively impacting millions of citizens. Need I say more?

Democracy in crisis: A Terrible Answer

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies – Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s amazing how we as human beings have the unlimited capacity to hear what we want to hear and see what we want to see. We can tell ourselves how much we are devoted to the truth, how fair we are, and how much we care about others, but it seems that there is something inside all of us that makes us susceptible to skewed vision that can make us incredibly shallow and self-centered.

Whether the foundation or catalyst for the skewed vision is love, abuse, ego, fear, prejudice, ignorance, etc., our perception becomes reality, no matter how much reality tells us otherwise. And therein lies the danger. 

I truly believe that we are living in dangerous times. There are many who may make light of the present social and political climate in this country, who may dismiss the behavior of some of the candidates that ran for office in the mid-term elections as merely public and shameless displays of incompetence or idiocy, who may look at the occasional incidences of violence as the random acts of a few psychos.

But history attaches a far more frightening potential to these developments that are dominating today’s headlines, which is the point that Professor Chomsky is making in the video. He makes the point that there is so much suffering and disillusionment in American today and people are looking for answers regarding what’s going on. Unfortunately Rush Limbaugh and people of his ilk are providing “an answer.” As Professor Chomsky profoundly puts it, “It’s a terrible answer…but it is an answer.”

In an article that appeared in The Progressive magazine earlier this year, professor Chomsky was quoted as saying, “The level of anger and fear is like nothing I can compare in my lifetime.”

Just to put the rise of the Tea Party in historical perspective, let’s consider another quote from Professor Chomsky that appeared in that article: “In 1928 the Nazis had less than 2 percent of the vote,” he said. “Two years later, millions supported them. The public got tired of the incessant wrangling, and the service to the powerful, and the failure of those in power to deal with their grievances.”

Something to think about…