Why Dennis Miller is a Republican (Maslow already basically explains why)

Alternate title for this post: "Why Republicans care so much about Terrorism" I've been meaning to write this blog entry for years (and I've discussed it with some of you before) but I kept postponing the blog post because I feared I wouldn't do it justice. I still think I won't do it justice but I want to have this rough draft up online and timestamped because "I can feel the zeitgeist reaching out towards another one of 'my' ideas". First: Read about "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs My summary of it: There is generally a priority system humans have where the basic/lower level needs must be met before the higher level needs can be addressed. From Highest Need to Lowest Need: - Self-Actualization (creativity, morality, lack of prejudice/open-mindedness, acceptance of facts that run contrary to your beliefs) - Esteem (confidence, respect by others) - Love/Belonging (friendship, sexual intimacy) - Safety (security of body, employment, property) - Physiological (breathing, food, water, sleep) FACETIOUS PROOF: Few people make creativity their highest priority if they're in the middle of drowning. Ok, now how does that relate to Dennis Miller being a Republican? Before I get to that here is a... SIDE NOTE ABOUT DENNIS MILLER: See my facebook posts about seeking new words (portmanteau) for someone who erroneously claims to be smart in an area probably due to his success in another area (e.g. fraudant & assinestein). Dennis Miller didn't seem so conservative when he was up-and-coming... As people go through life they develop (or ossify) their own belief system. It's rational and intuitive to assume if they are successful they are less likely to "change a winning system". If they are less successful they are more likely to attempt to change their ways. This is not to say that unsuccessful people necessarily change their way because, obviously, it may be their insistence to stick to a losing formula that results in their continuing failure. Additionally, I'm not claiming that successful people never change or adapt (just the opposite - clearly there are successful people who are successful primarily because they change and adapt). Rather, it's the overarching belief system that solidifies more for the winners than the losers. Example: someone who credits his belief system ("it's all about hard work" or "it's all about devotion to god" or "it's all about education" or "it's all about relationships" or "it's all about looking out for number one") for his success, however he defines success, will seek to perpetuate that belief system. SEE MY RELATED POST ABOUT "RIGGING THE SYSTEM FOR WHAT YOU VALUE". Consequently, when Dennis Miller became successful his lower-level needs were clearly met and he began to progress to the higher level needs. Unfortunately, the higher-level needs themselves ran contrary to his fundamental belief system (he ignores facts such as trickledown economics' objectively worse results than progressive policies and Bush/Cheney's militarism doing more harm than good). This cognitive dissonance had to be resolved. So Dennis Miller chose to change his perception & definition of security in order to necessitate his preoccupation with that level so as to prevent him from addressing the higher level needs that ran contrary to his belief system. In short: By obsessing over extremely less-likely fears he doesn't have to challenge his belief system. (Compare the death rates of Americans and you'll see the massive disproportionality between actual causes of death and where we spend or make compromises with our money/research/resources/lives/freedom). Ok, I kinda skimmed right past some of the specifics of the argument to get to the cool conclusion (IMHO). Here are more specifics: Dennis Miller's belief system is a simplistic "eye for an eye" code of justice. Fundamentally he doesn't agree with notions of doing something good for an enemy because he only thinks that encourages them. This willfully blind "revenge begets revenge" strategy also ignores the phenomenon that I describe as "you can't punish a masochist with spankings". If terrorists want to pick a fight with you because your violent response would elicit sympathy/support and their lack of picking a fight would result in an even worse outcome for them then rationally, they should want to pick a fight and you shouldn't give it to them. QED. This line of higher-level thinking informs my opinions about Israel (they should trade land for peace in a massively, overly generous deal for the Palestinians because when fewer family members are killed fewer martyrs are created/motivated - see my post THERE IS NO EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO AMERICA - though I do concede that my premise could be flawed - specifically, I assume a deal could exist that was so generous to the Palestinians that there would, in fact, be peace). As George W. Bush's disastrous war in Iraq & Afghanistan has utterly proved - "you can't always kill your way to peace". Terrorism does exist but it's not remotely as dangerous as it would have to be to merit the resources we have already spent (let alone the incompetence with which we spent it or the amounts we have yet to spend). There will always be some small population of chemically-messed-up psychos and therefore goal of society is to prevent rational people from being led by those psychos. Kill someone's family member, even in "collateral damage", and he's more likely to be led by a psycho. GWB also proved that military occupation doesn't work. Virtually all of GWB & Cheney's premises and predictions have been definitively proven to be false (Iraq involved in 9/11, Iraq has WMD, war will "pay for itself & not cost the American taxpayer", "Last throes of the insurgency" etc.). Such incontrovertible evidence should challenge their followers' belief systems. To prevent consequential cognitive dissonance Republicans drop-down and revert to shrill scare tactics to make people afraid. By constantly scaring people they can focus on lower-level needs and thus never have to confront the flaws in their belief systems. To be a rational, practical person there has to be a price (not necessarily in money) at which you would buy or sell anything. "Life is all about trade-offs". Devoting resources to one issue means, at a minimum, opportunity costs of not being able to use those resources for something else. If, before the Iraq & Afghanistan war, a time-traveler whom you trusted told you it would eventually cost 10 trillion dollars and 1 million American lives would the most ardent Republican still have agreed to proceed? What about 500 trillion dollars and 300 million American lives? At what price would it not be worth it? To be fair, for liberals - what if a trusted time traveler told you that not going to war would result in costs of 500 trillion dollars and 300 million American lives? I can humbly say unequivocally that in such a hypothetical world I would endorse the Republican strategy. But the wonderful thing about our real world situation is that we can use the scientific method to determine who is a better predictor of the future (since, regrettably we have no time-travelers). We can all make predictions and those whose predictions consistently come true can be given more credence and THOSE WHOSE PREDICTIONS DON'T COME TRUE (beyond chance) CAN BE (SHOULD BE) IGNORED! Though those who are consistently off by 180 degrees could still be useful as a negative compass. SIDE NOTE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT (albeit unfalsifiable, unfortunately): I think the time traveler would have said that not going to war in the Middle East would have resulted in costs of much less money and fewer lives than has already been spent to date. Back to Dennis Miller: He has plenty of money and he has no credible fears in his average daily life. So he obsesses about the remote possibility that a terrorist attack would harm him or his family because then he can be scared enough to prevent a confrontation with the higher levels of needs. I'm not claiming that all Republicans are Republicans for those same reasons Dennis Miller is. Like any belief system (including Liberalism) people can become indoctrinated by many methods. It's the confrontation of one's belief system with facts that are incongruous with one's expectations that is interesting to me here. Ok, this is already too long & messy for a rough draft that is posted online. But I really enjoy having things "on the record" before the zeitgeist catches up. IF YOU'RE READING THIS ON FACEBOOK (or anywhere other than my blog) - Please post comments on my blog http://corpania.blogspot.com AND NOT ON FACEBOOK. Thank you and good karma to you.