Dumb and Beauty Is as Dumb and Beauty Does

So when did it become politically incorrect to change your mind when you get new facts that alter a carefully crafted perception? I’ve checked, and I can’t find a law that prevents one from changing one’s mind. Even so, there are lots of folks, for reasons of their own, who seem incapable of such a simple mental exercise. It’s as though they would cease to exist if any part of their description of real is threatened. Unfortunately, they are also incapable of maintaining harmony in any relationship. I suspect that it’s a which-came-first-chicken-or-egg kind of thing. For example, the state of Alabama legislature tried to pull a fast one over on the judicial system¹. Several years ago, they redrew the electoral maps but they divided up districts in order to limit the effect of the black vote. The courts said that was not allowed and told them to redo the maps. The time to have the maps redrawn came and went. So Alabama sent the same maps back to the courts. Now the three judge panel whose duty it is to oversee these things just threw up their hands and turned the whole redistricting deal to the feds. You see, the only problem Alabama has in all of this is a bunch of Republican lawmakers who can not change their minds. They have no intention of finding any kind of harmony. They’re a uniquely clever bunch, you see.

Temper Tantrums Are the Result of a Kid Not Changing His Mind, Right?

There may be any number of motivations for an individual to decide that he can not change his mind about an issue. However, I doubt that such a motivation is ever conscious. Take the Republican push to deny a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy. I doubt that any of the lawmakers who passed laws to restrict women’s healthcare ever considered themselves to be suspicious of the women with whom they have sex. Is it really that important to know if the baby she’s having is yours? That is a plausible motivation as much as saying it’s a sin. If the sin is what you’re combating then how about taking the Lord’s name in vain? Or thou shalt not bear false witness? How about thou shall not have any other Gods before me? How important is money? How important is what you think or believe or own? It is what it is, okay? If you’re happy with how it is for you, that’s great. But in order to make anything real, agreement with other people is necessary. I’ve never seen much agreement in the absence of harmony, have you? Do those folks limiting what a women’s healthcare can and can not be, think they are in harmony with women? Just asking. But it is a curious set of possible answers, huh?

No Skills Required?

Power, if that’s what these folks are trying to demonstrate, is never found in subjugation. It is found in agreement. Taylor Swift has such agreement which she uses as power as does, Beyoncé and Burna Boy. Does anyone think that Ted Cruz has the star power of Burna Boy? Burna Boy is an international star who has sold perhaps more records than Beyoncé herself. That’s a lot of agreement because a lot of people in the world have a harmonic vibration with the man. I can’t see how the entire Freedom Caucus all rolled into one would have that much agreement about anything.

OOO So You Can Be Obstinate? Oh, Wow!

The ability to find agreement has long been valued as the venue of the learned. The Art of War tells us that a general who negotiates peace without conflict is much wiser than the general who only goes to war. That’s probably part of why agreement is an adults-only activity. There is one other demographic in the society who is equally obstinate. But then two and three-year-olds are rarely mistaken for adult humans. Some three-year-olds qualify for DNA testing to make sure they’re even human, that’s true, but still. In reality there is a very small percentage of two and three-year-olds who are found to be actual demon spawn. I’m not as sure about the percentage of Republican lawmakers who would qualify as demon born and bred.

Is Destruction a Valid Means of Communication?

I’d like to focus on two types of agreement. In very broad terms we could say that there are constructive agreements and there are destructive agreements. There are those in Congress that think there is power in destructiveness. There isn’t, but then children often think the same thing. We all know and have known kids who went through a space of time where they were destructive as a means of communication. Is that what some members of congress are doing? Are they holding on to childish behavior because they can not bring themselves to realize the value of actual moral leadership?

Dumb and Beauty Is as Dumb and Beauty Does. But They Can Never Be Righteous.

I don’t know about you, but I do not consider plunging the United States into the chaos that defaulting on the national debt would bring about to be sound political maneuvering. It does, however, qualify as abject stupidity. Such an action does not benefit anyone including those who force the default to occur simply because they can not change their minds? About anything? So, this bunch of grown children are going to be destructive in order to get their way? Has that ever really worked for even a three-year-old? I understand that the folks who are threatening the default think they are involved in a righteous course of action. It could be that there are forces in play here which may not allow a default to take place for immense financial reasons. Full stop.

It’s Really Bad Form to Have Missed the Consequence of Obstinance.

Stupidity can not be allowed to govern even though it’s the easiest of all human vices used to seduce the practitioner. Why? Because stupidity is measured in units of awareness of consequence. Stupidity does not recognize consequence. Politicians use stupidity and its cousin, ignorance, to sway people to join a particular color of fan club. Kind of like the difference between jazz and pop music. Both genres are music but they’re distinct enough to recognize one or the other. Political parties are more or less the same kind of thing. They’re distinctly different, but what they do with power is also distinctly different. One political set sees power as an opportunity to right the wrongs of economic inequality for their constituency, while the other political set wants exactly the same thing, but for those who live on the plus side of economic inequality.

The problem is that neither political set is ‘right’. Which is the actual reason that political discussion has been all the rage since Independence Hall. The folks who attended that gig realized that we were going to have lots of political discussions, what with our insistence that our thoughts are the ‘right’ thoughts. They realized that we have to have time to change our minds. Some of us may even need to have encouragement to change our minds. I have never seen obstinance function as a tool to construct anything at all. I have seen it used as a tool for the destruction of relationships. Don’t misunderstand here. I think that a blond Georgia Peach who has spunk is downright entertaining too. But spunk and destructiveness isn’t going to do anyone any damned good.

References

1. FIELDS, G., & LICON, A. G. (2023, September 18). A Supreme Court redistricting ruling gave hope to Black voters. They’re still waiting for new maps. AP News. Retrieved September 19, 2023, from https://apnews.com/article/black-voters-redistricting-alabama-louisiana-florida-af60cdd8d71c5b102a950623bd31e555

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