Tea Party » Mental Pluff Mud

Mr Levin protecting the sheeple

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Apr 132010

When I was a young teenager I attended a small Southern church with Pentecostal leanings, my “little experiment” with Christianity. My best friend at the time happened to be a Catholic and one weekend that she was spending with me I suggested we attend the church.

Not having been raised in any sort of religion, and not having any real experience with the differences between Christian denominations and the sometimes strong feelings of disapproval for “the others,” I was completely taken aback when told that she was not allowed to attend a church of a different denomination. I may have been taken aback by the “not allowed” but I was stunned and bewildered to learn that it would be a “sin” for her to do so.

I thought about all of that and the confusion I felt at the time when I read the AP piece on Breitbart Foes of tea party movement to infiltrate rallies.

[...]Jason Levin, creator of http://www.crashtheteaparty.org, said Monday the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the country who are trying to recruit members to infiltrate tea party events for April 15—tax filing day, when tea party groups across the country are planning to gather and protest high taxes.

“Every time we have someone on camera saying that Barack Obama isn’t an American citizen, we want someone sitting next to him saying, ‘That’s right, he’s an alien from outer space!’” Levin said.

[...]Levin says they want to exaggerate the group’s least appealing qualities, further distance the tea party from mainstream America and damage the public’s opinion of them. [Emphasis added]

How very like the Catholic church of my long ago best friend. Mustn’t allow the exposure of “the flock” to a message that might be counter to approved dogma. Not only is hearing a message from “the other” to be discouraged, it must be demonized. “The Flock” must be convinced that the “teachings of the other” is a vile and defiling thing to be shunned for fear of “infection.”

Mr. Levin’s own little Grand Inquisition. He has determined the “truth” and he wishes to do his part to make sure anyone who doesn’t believe the same “truth” is viewed as heretical — even if he has to manufacture the “evidence.” Also not unlike the Catholic Church of old in its pursuit of heretical thinkers. All in the name of “protecting” those deemed too stupid to be trusted to judge the truth for themselves… or come to it upon fair and informed consideration.

If I were a Democrat or Liberal I would be highly insulted by Mr. Levin’s assumptions. By his actions and planned actions he is saying to all the world that Democrats and Liberals are too stupid to risk being exposed to what he views as heresy. He doesn’t want any of the flock lost. A “good shepherd” protects the flock…or the sheeple…

… just ask the Catholic church.

Ultimately, Mr. Levin is doing the Tea Party a favor. You see, there are a few that have been drawn to the Tea Party that are a liability to its image when it comes to building a movement large enough to be the force that shapes the political future over the next few years. Now, with Mr. Levin and his “leaders”… eh… fellow sheeple shepherds…. it will be all the easier to dismiss and distance that small element, because now we will always be able to say: It’s not the Tea Party [and, it really isn't] it’s Mr. Levin and gang if or when someone’s political passions are displayed in anything other than 100% political correctness.

Honestly, I didn’t give the crash the tea party website any credence when I first came upon it. I figured it was actually a Tea Partier showing a bit of pro-active imagination by laying the groundwork for a convenient place to point a finger. It’s kinda funny when you think about it: a Tea Partier pretending to be an activist pretending to be a Tea Partier.

It’s going to be very interesting in the political arena the next two years.

Truth and Belief

Politics 2 Responses »

Apr 052010

Have you ever tried to change someone’s mind? I have, any number of times. I probably have more thumbs than the number of times I’ve been successful however. You see, it’s a simple bit of human nature that we do not seek to be informed, instead we seek to have what we already believe confirmed — even if what we believe is completely untrue. Depressingly, what we believe is often that which we are predisposed to believe to begin with.

For too many people, “truth” is that which we believe, irrespective of fact or veracity.

This simple common human foible is usually of little consequence in our day-to-day lives, but every now and again it does have consequences.

I am deeply concerned about the widespread misrepresentation of those who oppose President Obama and/or the Democratic agenda as being raging racists, homophobes, misogynists, and just generally ignorant hate-filled malcontents. As I’ve said in a previous post, I’m none of those things, yet I’ve become equally deeply upset [angry] at President Obama, his administration, the Democratic controlled congress, the fiscal nightmare we find ourselves, the bailouts, the nationalizations, — well, you get the idea: just about EVERYTHING going on with government’s fingers in it.

Here is a snippet from the Washington Post [Sept 4, 2007]

Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach

By Shankar Vedantam?Washington Post Staff Writer

[...]Long-term memories matter most in public health campaigns or political ones, and they are the most susceptible to the bias of thinking that well-recalled false information is true.

The experiments do not show that denials are completely useless; if that were true, everyone would believe the myths. But the mind’s bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.

The research also highlights the disturbing reality that once an idea has been implanted in people’s minds, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information, which may be one reason they can paradoxically reinforce it.

Indeed, repetition seems to be a key culprit. Things that are repeated often become more accessible in memory, and one of the brain’s subconscious rules of thumb is that easily recalled things are true.

[...]But someone trying to manipulate public opinion can take advantage of this aspect of brain functioning. In politics and elsewhere, this means that whoever makes the first assertion about something has a large advantage over everyone who denies it later.

Furthermore, a new experiment by Kimberlee Weaver at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and others shows that hearing the same thing over and over again from one source can have the same effect as hearing that thing from many different people — the brain gets tricked into thinking it has heard a piece of information from multiple, independent sources, even when it has not. Weaver’s study was published this year [2007] in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. [Emphasis added]

There are voices out there putting facts aright, unfortunately, those voices are probably falling on ears subject to human nature. Be that as it may, it’s important to drag deliberate lies and willful acts of defamation into the sunshine and counter them with facts and logic. I thank all of those “out there” attempting to set the record straight. A Thank You motivated as much by my appreciation for the difficulty of the task [you might even say - futility] as it is by the simple fact that I appreciate anyone who stands up against injustice, thuggery, and tyranny… in any of their incarnations.

I won’t go into all the falsehoods with this post, others more eloquent than I are doing a far better job at the “heavy lifting” than I would offer. However, I do stand up and point to myself as a concrete example of the lie that is the Democratic and Liberal smear campaign being waged against those whose only “misdeed” is having the audacity to disagree with them.