Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance is the feeling of pain caused by holding two contradicting ideas at once. In short it's what happens when you get a headache if someone goes 'yea this fire is cold' or get annoyed at someone saying 'dang this is some dry water'. Our brain will simply not allow such an insane combination in it, so it punches and bites and screams until you say "Ok ok, fire is hot" or "alright water is wet!" It's also what I get when I listen to the Republicans talk about Obama. To start with let me clear one thing up. Every single right winger who goes 'hey guys let's treat Obama just like they treated Bush, that'll teach em!' is scum and possibly also inbred. We treated Bush par for the course at first, especially considering that his first election was so heated. We treated him like shit only after he snorted some coke and started throwing darts at the Middle East to attack, and then started deciding anyone with a funny name was 'onea them'. That's when we all started going 'waaaait what the hell is wrong with this guy'.

To do that from day one is insane, because the man didn't do anything yet. That's like your boss walking into your 0ffice and saying "Look I know this is your first day but you're fired, see we got this guy LAST time and he was a real idiot and people were jerks to him, but he was my buddy so..." The best part about this is despite this, he's starting off well. For one, the FDA just today began allowing studies in the effects of embryonic stem cells on paralyses and cancer victims, putting us about on par with the rest of the scientific world! He also removed the Global Gag Rule, no longer is the government withholding funds for family planning services could be given to clinics or groups that offer abortion services or counseling in other countries even if the funds for those activities come from non-U.S. government sources. And finally he's closing Gitmo down.

Yes, despite the "ARE YOUR CHILDREN IN DANGER?" and "TERRORISTS IN YOUR BACK YARD?" headlines in Fox News (you see, it's not lies if they put a ? on it) this is a good thing. We can finally claim the moral high ground in this war on terror. You see, when we bomb people for capturing and torturing people for no reason, we shouldn't be doing that. Many Gitmo arrests were made by simple word of mouth, famous cases including a warlord who bombed buildings then 'turned in' rivals or innocent people, and the opium lord who had a rival lord's family brought in for no real reason other then cartoonish evil. You see, the codes for arrests in the 'war on terror' cases are very loose, meaning the main qualifications are: Does the person have a funny name? Does he look Muslim? ARREST, we'll find out later. You see, these people actually deserve a fair court case, that is part of the basic rights our soldiers fight for. You can't deny them rights out of fear, or else the terrorists really do win. That's why they're called terrorists, they strive to make us so insane with fear we crumble, and you know what? Thanks to the right in this country, they have. All these smug little men and women going 'heh see these people in Gitmo are being treated great, who cares?', or 'if you have nothing to hide why does it matter?' to every 'security measure' we get, they're just feeding the terrorists wins. I also enjoy this idea the right seems to have that we have no jails in America, and all these people will just get let go. You see, we're still gonna illegally hold them captive, don't worry guys, but we just can't torture them too. We still will isolate people who have been arrested solely by word of mouth and guesses, we will still threaten their families and such, and we will still be shocked when we let them go they're pretty mad at us, we just won't also torture them. It's a start.

Speaking of military, another feather in Obama's cap is his promise to remove Don't Ask Don't Tell. Yea it's just a promise for now, but still, way better then most gave. For those that don't know, DADT basically says "Hey faggots, feel free to come die for your country, but stay in the closet ok?" Of course, this is being seen as a horrible thing to the right, since you know this was supposed to be a compromise! Yea, see, they no longer could BAN gays from serving since it was kept secret, and all they had to do was stay firmly in the closet and worry about losing their jobs if they're ever found out. You see, it's alot like high school, you're free to BE there all you want, just don't let it out that you're gay or else you're screwed, and you know how healthy and great highschool is for gay students! Yea, I mean most of these guys are either only recently out of the closet or still in it, so it's not that big of a shift right? You know those suicide rates and such are mostly fudged you know. What really gets me, though, is that for most of the opposition to it they're scared because knowing someone is gay may mean you may get your life saved by a gay man! Can you just imagine? Knowing a lisping sissy saved your life? Oh, he doesn't have a lisp and looks just like the rest of the squad? Oh, you mean he's a person just like you and before this you didn't even know he was gay? Well you see, it's still very important I'm sure. No no, I'm sure you're not homophobic, you just feel that your perception of someone will totally be warped if you find that they're gay. Nooo that's not bad.

This morning Rush Limbaugh was talking about the Pakistan missile hit, and he was enraged. I was listening to him because coffee just doesn't wake a man up quite like boiling rage does. He was really upset that under Obama we killed ten Pakistanis, and he was honestly concerned that this would anger Muslims. He at no time mentioned Iraq, Afghanistan, or Israel, you see, none of that happened under Obama. No, the Muslim world was happy with Iraq, and had no problem with us sending boats and planes loaded with weapons to Israel to help them make sure that a people who were already in the stone age were kept there.

Speaking of Israel, I really do think I need to put my stance on it down on paper, just for ease in my own head. I support it's right to exist, but at the same time, I feel that it is in no way exempt from blame. Israel has done alot of things that would appal the original founders, and yes they have been the victims of horrors as well, and neither of these counter each other. Israel and Palestine aren't even in the same scale, the Palestinian 'rockets' they launch daily are just that, rockets you could buy at a hobby store with some explosives. Does that make it ok? Of course not, but nor does that mean you should retaliate with F-16 bombers and call it equal. We have been told by the right that this is all proportional, so let's look at proportions. Before Obama was sworn in and Gaza was the center of the world spot light most numbers said 5 Israeli people died, counting soldiers, and around 490 Palestinians died. This is nearly a 100:1 scale, if these are proportional, every 1 Israeli is worth 1000 Palestinians. Of course, this means Israelis are a superior race, which would make it alright to do such a thing. In fact, an Israeli minster publicly said Gaza was bringing upon itself a 'holocaust unlike any other'. No, I'm sure the founders are very proud of all of these men. You see, Israel is smart, they know how to work the laws (*insert Jew lawyer joke here*), under a cease fire it is strictly a military thing, meaning no weapons may be fired. This doesn't ban, however, the stopping of humanitarian aid, water, power, medicine, or any other thing Israel often does when "Checkpoint Security is heightened" during cease fires. This of course leads terrorists to respond the only way they can, with force, and gives Israel a chance to retaliate freely. I'm not saying Israel deserves all the blame, but I am saying we need to be fair in this, and if we now suddenly are worried about Muslim relations, we should stop turning a blind eye to Israel's faults in these issues. Both sides have blood on their hands, both must be held accountable. The Talmud teaches that sin is always sin, there is no justification for sin, and the leaders of a 'Jewish State' should know this. Speaking of which, random trivia, calling Israel a Jewish State is actually fairly wrong, because we are not to establish any Jewish States until the Messiah comes. You see, if we do wish to jump the gun and make Israel a Jewish State, we need to make it one the Messiah would be proud of, we need to adhere to the laws we are taught. Defense is one thing, defense is fine, but kicking an already broken people while they are down until the extremists respond violently is not defense, and it is not how a Jewish State treats their brothers and sisters. We hear endless pages and biographies of every Israeli killed, but Palestinian deaths are cold numbers, a rocket in a market in Israel is an atrocity, but an F-16 blowing a school up is simply retaliation. Jew or Muslim, we are all Human, we are all someone's child, someone's sibling, someone's lover, someone's spouse. To make sure every Israeli death is personalized but keeping Palestinian deaths as cold numbers should not be done. A common Hebrew saying rings true in many cases in this conflict for both sides. "Whoever teaches his son teaches not only his son but also his son's son, and so on to the end of generations. "