Never Count on Redemption

Well, health care passed. And Obama has dared the right to run this Fall on a platform of repeal, once the plan's benefits (never well communicated) start becoming apparent to constituents. Doing so would be as suicidal as Alf Landon's ill-fated 1936 presidential campaign based on repeal of social security.

Of course, the country will be delighted with its new health care program - even the furious protestors, all of whom will blithely continue to rail against the socialist president - much as those who've come around to deem the Iraq war a debacle seem incapable of reevaluating their early view of war protestors as un-American. And much as many furiously anti-stimulus Republican congressmen proceeded to brag to constituents about the resulting flow of local economic development funds.

This particular dementia is not unique to the right or to any other single group (though it appears that way when one observes across a divide). Rather, it's a deep-seated bug in the human OS. We are easily capable of changing our minds on issues while blithely sticking to an over-arching story. The evidence may change, but the judgement remains in force.

Years ago, a few horrendous assholes swaggered onto the message boards of Chowhound.com and proceeded to post in vast profusion, relentlessly pummeling anyone who dared disagree. We asked them to give others a chance, rather than monopolize every conversation, but their compulsive output continued to spread like kudzu. We expunged the nastiest stuff, and, when they howled with indignation, we begged them to start their own forum...which, praise Jesus, they finally did. Predictably, they used the new forum to prattle on about how they'd been forced out because I'd felt threatened by their superior food knowledge.

Fine. Whatever.

But people believed it (a lie oft-repeated becomes truth). And even though these individuals eventually became duly notorious for their "special" qualities, it's amused me that no one ever thought to reexamine the "Leff is a Tyrant" trope they'd worked to circulate.

On the other hand, this psychological issue may represent a "feature" rather than a "bug". If every time we changed an opinion, it involved a major unraveling and reevaluation of our thought systems, it'd be impossible to get on with our lives. And so we retain an irrational but practical ability to insert and retract individual ideas and opinions modularly, without affecting the fundamental structure of our outlook.