Category: philosophy

bookmark_border“Hey MAGAs, show me your best cognitive dissonance!”

Posted on by Marissa

I recently saw a post from one of my Facebook “friends” regarding the accidental leaking of military information by Department of Defense officials in a group chat.

The post read: “Hey MAGAs, show me your best cognitive dissonance! Best one wins a new red hat!… Go ahead, twist me a pretzel and tell me why this is all OK.”

This post, to be blunt, really pisses me off. And it does so for two reasons:

First, the double standards and logical inconsistency. This person expresses outrage about what is a relatively minor problem in the grand scheme of things, while completely failing to express any criticism of an obvious, pervasive, and blatant campaign of atrocity that is enormous in both its scope and its severity. He calls an accidental leak “a major fuck up” and “justification for heads to roll.” However, he expressed not even the mildest criticism of the statue genocide that began in 2020 and continues to this day, a series of deliberate and intentional acts of extreme cruelty targeting people who are different from the norm in an attempt to ensure their erasure from society. It makes no sense that someone would get so outraged at what is essentially an accident, while apparently feeling no outrage whatsoever at a deliberate and cruel campaign to inflict harm.

Second is the entire way that the argument is framed. This person purportedly invites others to discuss and debate, while simultaneously stating that anyone who expresses a differing opinion is demonstrating “cognitive dissonance” and “twisting a pretzel.” This way of framing the issue puts people who see things differently in a no-win position: we could either be silent and pretend that we agree when we don’t, or we could speak up and have our views automatically be labeled as “cognitive dissonance” and “twisting a pretzel.” Talk about intolerance for those who think and feel differently than you do. What is the point of inviting discussion when you have no openness to considering alternative perspectives? Why even ask people to contribute their views, when you admittedly have no intention of actually hearing or learning from those views, but intend rather to use those views as evidence of their authors’ twistedness and cognitive dissonance?

Personally, I support Trump and his administration because I’m on the autism spectrum and my special interest is history and statues, so the events involving statues that have taken place over the past 5 years have had a profound negative impact on me. The issue of military information being leaked just isn’t important to me in comparison, and therefore I do not share the outrage that this “friend” and so many other people are expressing. This isn’t cognitive dissonance, and it’s not twisting a pretzel. I simply have a different perspective because I’ve had different life experiences and my brain works differently.

bookmark_border“You have a right to self-defense and the use of just force …”

Posted on by Marissa

Check out this post from the Firearms Policy Coalition:

My reaction: So? Whether or not your abuser can get a gun is none of your business. Whether or not your abuser can carry a gun concealed is also none of your business.  The only thing that is your business is that your abuser doesn’t harm you, and doesn’t contact you if you don’t want them to. And preventing these things is the whole purpose of a restraining order.

As long as a person is not harming you or contacting you against your wishes, the things that they do are none of your business. The objects that another person owns and/or carries are none of your business.

You have a right not to be harmed or contacted; you don’t have a right to prevent others from owning or carrying any object that they might potentially use to harm you. If you demand control over the objects that other people are allowed to own and/or carry, you are now the one who is harming others, and you are now the abuser.

As the FPC correctly points out: “You have a right to self-defense and the use of just force against unjust force. Period.”

bookmark_borderThere’s nothing “weird” about being interested in art

Posted on by Marissa

I recently saw an article about President Trump’s appointment of several of his supporters to the board of directors of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The article’s headline read, “Trump’s weird obsession with the arts is right out of the fascist playbook.”

This headline is just another example of the intolerance and bigotry of the supporters of “woke” ideology. Why do these people consider art to be something that only those who share their ideology are allowed to take part in? Why do these people consider anyone who thinks differently than they do to be “weird” and “fascist”? It’s because they are bullies. It’s because they are intolerant bigots who value sameness and conformity above all else and believe that being different from the norm is intrinsically bad. In other words, they have values and beliefs that are the exact opposite of the values and beliefs that they claim to have. If this sounds completely hypocritical, logically inconsistent, and morally bankrupt, that’s because it is.

I consider myself to be both right-wing, and a Trump supporter, and I love art. Art is one of the most important things in my life, if not the most important. As someone whose ideological views are not shared or understood by the people around me, art is a crucial form of self-expression. It is because of my right-wing values and beliefs – not despite them – that I love art. Art is how I express my emotions, feelings, and thoughts. It’s how I honor the historical figures that I love. (If you are interested, you can see some of my artwork at my art website here.)

There is nothing “weird” about being interested in art, and there certainly isn’t anything “fascist” about it. Silly me, but I would argue that it is fascist to believe that only people who think like you are allowed to be interested in art. Unfortunately for the woke bullies, there is no law restricting art to only one ideology. People like me have just as much right to partake in art as they do.

bookmark_borderThe distinction between settlers and immigrants

Posted on by Marissa

Interesting post by Matt Walsh:

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson)

This is a good explanation of the distinction between settlers and immigrants. People who oppose unlimited immigration are often called hypocrites because their ancestors were settlers. Walsh’s argument debunks these allegations. Additionally, anti-white racists often use the term “settler colonialism” (whatever the heck that even means) as a pejorative, presuming that settlers are intrinsically bad. But as Walsh points out, settlers built this country. They ventured into the wilderness to build a civilization from scratch, something that takes great courage. There’s nothing bad about settlers, and nothing hypocritical about being descended from them.

bookmark_border“Elon Musk is trying to access your personal bank and tax data”

Posted on by Marissa

Sen. Adam Schiff recently stated: 

“Elon Musk is trying to access your personal bank and tax data. The world’s richest man should not and cannot be able to snoop around your personal finances. Period. End of story.”

This response by a user called Chaotic Good is spot on:

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Glory Glory (@oldgloryglory)

Personally, I find it rich that Schiff would complain about Musk being able to “snoop around” people’s personal data when he and his party demanded that people be required to provide personal medical information in order to be allowed to work, attend school, eat at restaurants, work out at gyms, or attend public events. This demonstrates a great deal of hypocrisy, lack of logic, and moral inconsistency, in my opinion. Why does Schiff care about people’s privacy now, when Musk is allegedly violating it, after he and his party spent years actively violating people’s medical privacy and personally insulting anyone who objected to these policies as selfish, irresponsible, ignorant, ridiculous, and stupid?

Also, it’s a bit puzzling that Schiff feels the needs to point out that Musk is the world’s richest man. Musk’s economic status doesn’t have anything to do with which data, if any, he should be able to access. Therefore, there really isn’t any reason to mention this. It’s almost as if Shiff thinks that being the world’s richest man is inherently something negative, and somehow makes Musk inherently bad and untrustworthy.

What Schiff should be saying is: Governments, companies, and other institutions should not and cannot be able to require people to undergo medical procedures. Period. End of story.

That is what is important. That is what is worth being outraged and upset about. Not Musk’s access to data.

bookmark_borderRestricting guns at polling places is not “good news”

Posted on by Marissa

Somewhat old news by now, but I agree wholeheartedly with this post from the Firearms Policy Coalition:

As FPC correctly points out, violating people’s rights is not “good news.”

Additionally, what is striking about Everytown’s post is that they equate the existence of guns with “armed intimidation.” They do realize that a person can possess a gun without using it to intimidate others, right? It’s almost as if it doesn’t occur to them that a person could just…exist. With a gun. Not using it to intimidate anyone. This shouldn’t be a revolutionary concept, but apparently, it is. Having a gun on your person is not the same thing as “armed intimidation.” Possessing a gun, in itself, does not intimidate anyone.

Furthermore, Everytown’s statement that “armed intimidation has no place in our democracy” is another example of the pompous, self-righteous, stuck-up, and condescending attitude that I discussed in an earlier post. What the heck is “our democracy,” anyway? Democracy is a form of government in which decisions are made based on what the majority of people prefer. There’s nothing positive about this. It allows the majority to violate the rights of unpopular minorities. Yet so many people speak of “our democracy” as if it’s something of supreme importance, something sacrosanct, something whose goodness is so obvious that it doesn’t need to be explained. To me, this is just another way of saying, only people like us matter. Only people who act like us, think like us, and live like us. No one else’s feelings, perspectives, viewpoints, or experiences matter. It’s “our” democracy, and everyone else can go to hell. We don’t like guns; therefore no one should be allowed to have them. Who cares about the fact that possessing a gun has no impact on anyone but yourself, and therefore isn’t anyone else’s business? As usual, the basic moral truth that people have a right to do anything that they want to, as long as it doesn’t harm others, is thrown out the window. To the worshippers of “our democracy,” only the majority’s perspective matters. If they don’t like something, then it should be banned. The rights of unpopular minorities – as well as the entire concept of people having rights, for that matter – are completely disregarded.

Enough about your democracy. Individual rights are what actually matter. And banning guns at polling places violates them. This is the opposite of “good news.”

bookmark_border“Soooo STUPID”

Posted on by Marissa

Defiant L’s captured this horrible tweet back from the times when the federal government was attempting to force all people to undergo a medical procedure:

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Defiant L’s (@defiant.ls)

Even now, four years later, this tweet is infuriating.

Yes, protesting against a policy that forces people to undergo a medical procedure against their will is “soooo STUPID.” God forbid that people, you know, stand up for their fundamental rights. God forbid that people fight back against policies that are morally wrong. Can’t have that. Obviously, when something violates people’s rights and is blatantly immoral, people should just accept it and not make any attempt to fight back against it in any way. Obviously, forcing people to undergo a medical procedure against their will is perfectly fine.

Not.

The fact that somebody could think this way is incomprehensible to me. It is admirable and courageous that airline workers put their jobs on the line to stand up for their right to bodily autonomy. To look at this situation and call the airline workers’ actions “soooo STUPID” is despicable, idiotic, and insulting. Any person who thinks this way is truly stupid.