October 29, 2012
They're adept at controlling the loyalists
Recently I read about an experiment
in behavior conditioning using monkeys as test subjects. Researchers
place five monkeys in a room. A banana is hung from the ceiling on a
string and a strategically placed ladder allows the monkeys to reach
the banana.
Almost immediately, one of the
monkeys will attempt to get the banana. As soon as this happens, cold
water sprays all of the monkeys, causing the ladder climber to
quickly abandon the attempt.
Soon after, one of the four
remaining monkeys will make another attempt, and again they are all
sprayed with cold water. After the second or third attempt, the other
monkeys will protect themselves from being drenched in cold water by
not allowing any other monkey to climb the ladder.
Researchers then replace one monkey
with a new one. The new monkey almost immediately tries to get the
banana and is attacked by the other monkeys. This process repeats
until every one of the original monkeys is replaced. Interestingly,
from then on, no monkey will ever attempt to get the banana again,
even though none have been sprayed with water. They have been
conditioned!
For some reason, this reminded me
of extreme party loyalists from either side, who find it impossible
to compromise and probably don't even know why. Many of them cling
desperately to their party loyalty without stopping to honestly
examine the actual behavior of those they elect.
Their elected officials proclaim
that they rigidly follow their party's professed values, even while
evidence suggests otherwise. To maintain loyalty, they simply conduct
endless polls to learn what their followers want to hear, and then
make certain that all answers and rhetoric match up with the polling
results.
One strategy both parties share is
to inflame the passions of loyalists by waging war against the
opposite party. Loyalist "monkeys" will then fight to the
death defending their party without a shred of reasonable valid
evidence.
Many likely don't even remember
when or why they chose their party affiliation. They say they are
Democrats because they are for the small guy/middle class and against
the wealthy, etc. Or they say they are Republicans because they
believe in smaller government and freedom for all citizens to either
succeed or fail on their own, etc.
Meanwhile, the elected officials
from either party all work for the exact same special interests.
Of course, it's easy to see how we
arrived at this frozen partisan impasse. The special interests, and
our elected officials trying desperately to remain in power, have
developed the perfect strategy to control their loyalists. They spin
their web of deceit by playing on all Americans' shared fear for
their families' and nation's future. Both parties have become experts
at deflecting this fear into ineffective anger at the other party's
leaders and followers.
Meanwhile, the American economic
decline, which actually began nearly 60 years ago, is slowly and
relentlessly crushing the middle and lower classes, and our nation's
future.
Politicians know that admitting the
severity of our challenges and both parties' culpability will kill
their chances of retaining power. Instead, they choose their
self-serving strategy of denying responsibility, blaming the other
party and dividing our citizenry.
This may help explain the behavior
of some who actually bother to vote in national elections. However,
what about the 45 percent or so of eligible voters who, for decades,
have chosen not to bother exercising this sacred privilege?
This astounding lack of
participation reminded me of a fable concerning frogs. As the story
goes, you can place a frog in a pot of cool water and slowly bring it
to a boil, and the frog will just allow itself to die rather than try
to get out.
Like the frog, nonvoters choose to
simply ignore the many problems our nation faces. They let others
worry about such things. It seems easier for citizen "frogs"
to occupy space in our shared pot of slowly heating water until our
nation dies rather than bother getting involved.
Imagine a giant pot of water
occupied by all Americans sitting on the steadily growing fire fueled
by the many problems that we face. Frogs, oblivious to the danger,
are in the center relaxing on their floats. The extremist red and
blue monkeys, on opposite sides of the pot, are egged on by their
leaders to spend all of their energy uselessly blaming "those
others" for the fire raising the temperature of the water.
Meanwhile, the rest of us, in the same pot, wonder what it's going to
take to get us to unite and put out the fire before it's too late.
What should you do? (1) If you are
one of the nonvoting "frogs," get off your butt, become
informed, and vote. (2) Don't ever tell a political party what you
want to hear by participating in a poll. (3) Kill the power of the
parties by changing your voter registration to independent. (4) Vote
out all incumbents in every primary and general election for the next
few cycles.
We know our Founding Fathers never
worried about a little cold water when going after the "bananas"
of freedom, and they sure didn't just lay around on their floats. If
they had done either, we would have never become the once great
nation America used to be.
These are my opinions. What do you
think?
Mike Tower
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