Joseph Nigro: A Lesson In Cognitive Dissonance

First some excerpts of the cognitive:

Fox News - WASHINGTON - Unemployment is up. The stock market is down. Let's party.

The price tag for President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration gala is expected to break records, with some estimates reaching as high as $150 million.

Despite the bleak economy, however, Democrats who called on President George W. Bush to be frugal four years ago are issuing no such demands now that an inaugural weekend of rock concerts and star-studded parties has begun.

In 2005, Reps. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., and Jim McDermott, D-Wash., asked Bush to show a little less pomp and be a little more circumspect at his party.
 
The thinking was that, with the nation at war, excessive celebration was inappropriate. Four years later, the nation is still at war. Unemployment has risen sharply.

And Obama pressed Congress to release the second half of a $700 billion bailout package in hopes of rescuing a faltering banking industry.

And now, for you dissonance fans:

Obama's inauguration committee says it is mindful of the times and is not worried people will see the four days of festivities as excessive.

"That is probably not the way the country is going to be looking at it," said committee spokeswoman Linda Douglass.

"It is not a celebration of an election. It is a celebration of our common values."

Douglass said the campaign sought to keep costs down by having the same decorations at each of the 10 balls, eliminating floral arrangements and negotiating prices on food.

"Those at the Obama administration are trying to be reflective of the climate," McDermott's spokesman, Mike DeCeasar, said Saturday.

See kids, learning can be fun unless you’re a liberal.

And with a little bit of sympathy you can try to imagine the vibration inside the heads of these people struggling daily with realities conflicting with their own indefensible “personal truths”.

Not a pretty picture.

Our greatest fear, however, is Washington D.C. is going to be permeated with the smell of pee for the next three months, as unprecedented numbers of people spontaneously wet themselves at the first sight of “The One” they’ve been waiting for.

Perhaps Sheryl Crow will walk the crowd handing out single squares of toilet tissue before too many end up with their panties frozen to their butts.

And kids – Important safety tip – Do not stick your tongue on the Washington Monument.

The Score (Stupid Don't Have To Mean Forever)

It's truly incredible:

Adults buying into ideas any 5-year old can see through.

Supposedly-educated people are blowing billions of dollars "studying" if water has a memory and if people can shoot mystic fire through their fingers.

And the majority of people who are "open-minded" to those unlikely ideas are the same ones who rail like nobody's business against a belief in Jesus - while registering no sense of hypocrisy what-so-ever. They even have the nerve to demand respect as they do so.

It's all very weird to me, because I can't be touched by this stuff - except to be surrounded by people who believe in some facet of it - which is a sort of Hell because any hope for a nice, normal, sane conversation (with people who hold no standards for proof) is impossible.

I'll never forget the chill that ran down my spine after telling my ex-wife a quack had killed her mother, and she replied, "You're just saying that because you don't believe." That's how insanity strikes me: like a shock to my nervous system. (I've hardly been able to play music since I discovered this stuff.) It's a physical sensation that really makes me dislike certain people, which I never hear the believers mention as they discuss their "positive" need to cause it. It's just all about them and what they get out of it: no one else counts.

Now my ex-wife and that quack are being investigated for two more murders. And for nothing at all. Nothing. Just a bunch of "beliefs" that led them to kill people. I get letters from their supporters, but they, too, steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the dead, or the pain it's caused me.

It's all about them and their anecdotal evidence - "It worked for me!" - with no concern for reason, the waste of resources, the deadly con that transpired, or the victim's families.

As the Western World appears to be going to Hell in a handbasket, I can't help but deduce it's because the previous generation (which was huge) started a process that is best defined by the phrase, "garbage in, garbage out."

Someone convinced them to "question everything" and, somehow, they seem to have gotten permanently locked into that phase every three year old goes through where they endlessly repeat "Why?" - totally missing what every adult discovers when encountering a scamp in that precocious period: asking questions is easy while endlessly coming up with answers is hard.

And anyone who's been through that experience knows an adult will eventually get really sick of that kid.

So what to do? I don't know. I've tried screaming "Grow up!" but my older brothers and sisters are convinced they don't have to - even after raising kids of their own.

My guess is watching an entire generation of spiteful troublemakers insist on dying pathetically, like Elizabeth Targ, will be enough to show those who follow them the error of their ways. Maybe not.

Personally, I'm just happy to know, one day, they'll be gone, and things can get back to some semblance of normalcy around here.