Cognitive Dissonance: Why do people vote for Democrats? A Liberal State of Mind pt.8 (Attack of the Republican Blogs)

Today on your home for young Republicans: Cognitive Dissonance aka A Liberal State of Mind pt.8

Cog-ni-tive (adjective)

1. Of or pertaining to cognition.
2. Of or pertaining to the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning as contrasted with emotional and volatile processes.

Dis-so-nance (noun)

1. Disagreement or incongruity.

To anyone who doesn’t know, this is the feeling of uncomfortable tension that comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.

It often increases with the importance of the subject to us, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our inability to rationalize and explain away the perceived conflict.

Dissonance is often strong when we believe something about ourselves and then do something against that belief. If I believe I am good but do something bad, then the discomfort I feel as a result is cognitive dissonance.

For example, have you ever been involved in a relationship (romantic, personal, work, ect…) where you spent more time rationalizing the reasons why you’re staying in the situation than realizing the negative effects of staying in said relationship?

“He hits me, but that’s only because I make him mad”

“She cheats on me, but she says she’s going to change”

“I’m a Democrat because my father was a Democrat because my grandfather was a Democrat and so on”

“So what if my taxes were raised? At least I didn’t vote for a Republican”

Notice anything about those statements? They all express a contrary circular logic that dictates that whenever presented with a negative occurrence, the most effective method to deal with it is to find a way to justify it to yourself. While this behavior may make you feel better in the interim, it does nothing to address the root issue or solve the problem. Hence, the same (insert problem here) will keep occurring, uninterrupted, in perpetuity.

I could go on forever with this subject. Most people find it easier to rationalize the actuality of (insert problem here) with a self defeating detachment from reality as opposed to facing the truth. It’s the literal equivalent of continuing to drive your car with the check engine light on in the hopes that it will magically turn itself off. You can ignore it all you want, but sooner or later, your car’s going to break down. Your refusal to accept the truth only leads to your inevitable failure. And that’s truly a liberal state of mind.

Cognitive dissonance is a very powerful motivator in voting which leads people to change one or the other of their conflicting beliefs or actions regarding a candidate, bill, proposition, measure, ect. The discomfort often feels like a tension between the two opposing thoughts.

Say for example, your friend happened to be running for (pick any) office and you knew they weren’t qualified to fill the position. Would you vote for them?

Consequently, if someone you truly disliked were running in opposition to your friend, would you vote against them even though they were more than qualified to fill the position?

The juxtaposition between doing what someone sees as what they’re supposed to do and doing what’s in their best interest has been prevalent in politics forever. Think about how many communities have been harmed or neglected by Democratic leaders for decades and yet their populace still votes Democrat. It’s astonishing.

To relive the tension felt by not acting in self interest, one of three actions will occur: a change of behavior, justifying the behavior by changing the conflicting cognition or justifying the behavior by adding new cognitions.

Dissonance is at its most powerful when it concerns self-image. Feelings of foolishness, immorality and so on (including internal projections during decision-making) are dissonance in action.
If an action has been completed and cannot be undone, then the after-the-fact dissonance compels us to change our beliefs. If beliefs are moved, then the dissonance appears during decision-making, forcing us to take actions we would not have taken before.

Does any of this sound familiar? I thought it might. Keep this in mind when discussing politics with the unenlightened.

In closing, special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News (thanks for the follow on twitter!) Jeanette (this one’s for you) and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (We’ve already won), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (join us), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Follow STL_Politics on Twitter.
References
Festinger (1957), Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)

It’s More Than Just Politics aka What happens when you put Democrats in office pt.6 (Attack of the Republican Blogs)

Today on your favorite political blog for young Republicans: It’s more than just politics aka yet another example of the ridiculous consequences that occur when you put Democrats into any form of office.

It’s looking like this socialist, clusterf*ck of a healthcare reform bill will face its final committee vote on Tuesday according to top Senate Democrat Harry Reid.

The bill that the Finance Committee will be voting on is a 10-year, $829 billion proposal that supposedly covers 94 percent of eligible Americans while (allegedly) reducing the federal budget.

As you may already know, Reid and other Senate Democrats who happen to be in support of this misguided attempt at healthcare reform have been busy lately characterizing GOP leaders as “partisan protesters” and “divisive”. But the fact is, Senate Dems have purposely mischaracterized or blatantly left out several key details about this bill that many Americans are still not aware of.

It’s only so long that Democrat PAC ads featuring elderly citizens and children and puppies and pretty background music can fool the American people. As much more facts come out about this bill, I’ve noticed the tide starting to shift against this Democratic version of healthcare reform.

For one, this legislation is filled with tax hikes. It starts by taxing those who earn over $10,831 per year and don’t buy health insurance-a tax that increases to $3,800 as income rises. Health Insurance, health care devices and prescription drugs are also taxed, adding to the cost of health care, and decreasing the amount of competition amongst health care related businesses.

The bill also cuts $500 billion in Medicare spending, which includes over $130 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage and almost $120 billion in Medicare cuts for hospitals and facilities that care for seniors (remember the adorable elderly people featured in their TV ads?). The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) says they expect the Medicare Advantage plans to lose around 2.7. million enrollees over the next ten years as a result of this bill being passed, while also stating that “premiums in the new insurance exchanges would tend to be higher than the average premiums in the current-law individual market…”

In other words, the cost of insurance will increase, as opposed to the claims being made by the Obama administration otherwise. But wait…it gets a lot worse.

This current bill includes what’s being called an “individual mandate”, which in essence would force all Americans to purchase health insurance. Subsidies will be given to those who earn up to three times the federal poverty level, while those who don’t qualify for the subsidies will be taxed up to $3,800 if they don’t buy insurance. So basically, if you can’t afford to buy insurance then you’ll be taxed almost $4,000. Does that make any sense to anyone? Leaving people caught in between being unable to afford insurance and having to pay this nonsensical tax? Ask yourself: If someone living at or below the poverty line had $4,000 to spend in discretionary income-don’t you think they would buy their own insurance as opposed to being taxed for not having it? And where would the tax money come from? If someone’s in what’s considered to be a lower class tax bracket, chances are they don’t pay income taxes anyway and actually get a tax refund every year.

Again, this is just the type of absurdity that can be expected when Democrats get elected to any form of office.

I can go on and on about how forcing all the uninsured into insurance could bring as much as $200 billion a year in new premiums to insurance companies (including $465 billion in subsidies over the next ten years), allowing law enforcement agencies unobstructed access to medical records (do you want that?), how this bill does nothing to add lawsuit reform to help curb frivolous lawsuits…you get the picture.

As Garet Garrett famously stated, “social gains that cost more than society can afford, especially those that are founded on the doctrine of dividing what there is instead of producing more, are bound in a little time to annul themselves.”

Socializing health care will not solve the problem. Raising taxes will not solve the problem. Government intervention will not solve the problem (bailouts anyone?) Punishing those who can’t afford health care will not solve the problem.

The only feasible solution is to elect the party in 2010 and 2012 that’s committed to cutting waste, lowering taxes, lessening bureaucracy, strengthening our country and providing economic growth and opportunities to all Americans; that party is the Republican Party. Vote GOP!

In closing, I’d like to give a special thanks to all of our Armed Forces, the RNC, the Missouri Republican Party, the Illinois Republican Party, Freedom Works, the College Republican National Committee, the National Black Republican Association, the Wall Street Journal, KSDK Channel 5, KTVI Fox 2 News (thanks for the follow on twitter!), the best assistant/god sister/too many things to name aka Jeanette (your aura…get it?), Missy (I just do like Just had said) and to all of my Republican Blogs and Bloggers (We’ve already won), my Libertarian blogs and bloggers (join us), my Democrat blogs and bloggers (Stop trying to socialize America), and to all Political blogs and bloggers: Let your voice be heard. GOP in 2012! If you’re not on the right, you’re wrong. Ready by 2011 to win in 2012! Follow STL_Politics on Twitter.
Links: http://freedomworks.org

http://grandoldparty2011.blogspot.com