Some Things I Really Don't Understand
As a human being I realize that I'm filled with contradictions. I can feel two, maybe even three, different ways at the same time. But usually when my contradictions are placed before me, I see their absurdity and make a choice. Therefore help me understand:
Many people are afraid of shipping prisoners at Guantanamo to their local states. It is just too dangerous to have them here, even in penitentiaries. But our own local police want Sara Jane Olson (Katheen Solia) not sent to Minnesota to serve out her parole but kept here where she tried to blow up L A Police. Huh?
I don't understand why it is okay to bail out bankers and insurance companies but it would be socialism to do it for the automobile industry. Why is government paid healthcare not socialism when it's for members of our congress but is a socialist threat to the soul of the nation when offered to private citizens?
Why did Saddam, yes a cruel dictator, have to be killed and his country bombed when Mugabe of Zimbabwe, who is at least as nasty, and Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, arguably worse, get to live undisturbed except by empty rhetoric? Why does Obama believe we will be more successful in Afghanistan than the Soviets or the British? Do we do better in rugged mountains than in urban areas and open deserts?
Why do Republicans oppose filibusters and ask for a "fair up or down vote" when they are in power and then use filibusters when in the minority? Why do Democrats want to protect the filibuster when they are in the minority but eliminate it when... Oh never mind. Pretty self-evident: opportunism meeting hypocrisy.
Why do conservatives usually believe in the general depravity of man yet don't believe in regulations, while liberals believe in the basic goodness of people but want us closely watched and regulated? Wouldn't it make more sense the other way around?
Sticking with such cognitive dissonance for the sake of being consistent is foolish, and, as Emerson asserted, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." We are indeed a nation of large (and possibly empty) minds.
©2009 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.org
Your last sentence said it all, Jonathan. Starting with "..... then we are indeed a nation of large (and possibly empty) minds." Sad, so very sad!
Thank you for always being on top of everything.
S. Hill
I do agree with the previous comment that you are "on top of everything." Although while you are asking so many "why's", let's also ask (for example) why all the pro-life people are against a woman's right to choose, yet against any sort of "socialist" programs to help that woman raise the child they would make her have, having to do with health care, preschool, school lunches, sex education, and any other social remedies?
I cannot agree that we are a nation of empty minds. It's only that our minds seem to be filled with what will profit us as individuals, rather than what will solve the problems of the many. I don't think it's stupidity at the heart of the issue, I think it's basic selfishness.
xx ali
Dear Ali
Well, I think I can answer with the rationale for pro-life people who don't want to help those "who choose life." Life is precious and of infinite worth while in the womb. When born, children go into a fallen state of sin and to hell with them
Cheers!
Jonathan