Waves, demons, and sunk costs

I find it utterly baffling how hard it is for people to look at something that didn't work out like they expected and say, "Well, I guess I was wrong, then."

I mean, on one level, I get it.  I'm no fonder of being wrong than the next guy.  Finding out you're mistaken, especially about something important, can be devastating.  And admitting you're wrong can be nothing short of humiliating.  But even so -- when the facts demand it, we don't really have a choice, do we?

To judge by a great many people, apparently we do, and that choice is "hang on like grim death to what we already believed, and summarily dismiss any evidence to the contrary."

Take, for example, last week's election here in the United States.  Many of us, on both sides of the aisle, were expecting a "red wave" -- that the Republicans would score resounding wins, and end up with decisive majorities in the House, Senate, and gubernatorial races.  Didn't quite work out that way.  The Democratic majority in the Senate looks like it'll be up by at least one, possibly two; at the time of this writing, the control of the House of Representatives has yet to be decided, but any majority (either way) is going to be razor-thin.

My reason for bringing this up in the context of "being wrong" is not the pollsters, nor mere voting citizens like myself.  I have nowhere near the expertise in political science to expect my prognostications about elections would carry any weight at all, and polls have been wrong as often as they're right.  No, what I'm looking at here are the people who predicted the "red wave" would happen -- because God had told them so personally.

Let's start with pastor George Pearsons, who told an interviewer on The Victory Channel that he knew the election wouldn't be "stolen" because he'd gotten the information directly from the Big Guy himself:

This afternoon I'm in the kitchen, and I'm fixing something to eat, and Terry and I are talking about the election, and the different things that are happening.  And for a moment I got quiet, and I heard the voice of the Lord.  And you know what he said?  He said, 'I got this.'...  Father, we thank you.  We have worked together between heaven and Earth.  Two years, praying, standing, believing,  We are, as believers, emboldened, empowered, and standing on our authority in the word of God.  This election will not be stolen.  Corruption, you bow your knee, your name to the name of Jesus [??? sic], and Father we thank you that we've seen in two years, Jesus himself has rolled up his sleeves, and he has worked, and his people have worked with him, in every shape, form, and manner.  So Lord, we thank you that this deal is over.  It's up.  And now we hear your voice: 'I got this.'  And we praise you and honor you for the victory this night for the United States of America.

As the results started coming in, though, the tune changed.  My Pillow guy Mike Lindell, also speaking on The Victory Channel, said he saw it coming, despite what God himself had said to Reverend Pearsons, and that had been announced on the same channel, only hours earlier:

Well, it's kind of what I expected.  They're stealing everything.  Just in Herschel Walker's race alone, over two hundred thousand votes have been injected into his opponent to get to this runoff stage.  They stole the governor's race with Mastriano in Pennsylvania, we've seen an early injection of ninety thousand votes in the computers, and Kari Lake, they're trying to steal her race, too.

Needless to say, there was no "injection" of votes, and the races weren't "stolen."  Walker's in a runoff but is trailing Raphael Warnock, and Mastriano lost fair and square.  But saying that is a bridge too far for people like Lindell.

A couple of days afterward, when it became clear that there had been no "red wave," the christofascists were scrambling around trying to figure out why the divine guidance had turned out to be flat wrong.  No way could they just say, "Maybe God didn't speak to us after all," or "Perhaps hitching our boat to Donald Trump wasn't such a great idea," or (worst of all) "It's time to do some reflection and rethink whether our message of exclusion, ugliness, and hate is in line with Jesus's actual words."  Instead, they cast around for what could possibly have made the election go sideways, and landed on the obvious answer:

It was the demons.

Pastor Shane Vaughn said that of course what God told him wasn't wrong, and of course he wasn't delusional when he claimed to hear God speaking in the first place.  It was just those damn demons:

That's why there was no red wave.  Abortion.  Abortion changed everything.  And even though all the polls showed the economy was the main issue, abortion is a religious issue.  And religion creates more passion than anything in the world...  And there's a religion of demons that loves abortion.  That religion of pro-abortion showed up.  It was bigger than anybody understood because of the passion those demonic powers create in their church of heathens that love to kill babies.  Now that's why there was no red wave.  Abortion.  Had it not been for the abortion issue, I promise you, the whole country would be red today.  What happened in Pennsylvania -- anybody who could vote for that monster, Uncle Fester, proves to me the power of demonic activity in the world today.  That's the only way you could vote for that man.  That's it.  Those demons did show up, and those demons do have power over this Earth.

So if the supernatural voice you supposedly heard telling you something turns out to be wrong, you have to invent a supernatural enemy to explain what happened?

I understand the sunk-cost fallacy; that once you've put a tremendous amount of personal and emotional energy into supporting something or someone, it's a huge effort to reverse course.  But seriously; isn't it time for some reassessment, here?

It puts me in mind of a couple of quotes, the first from Susan B. Anthony: "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."  And even more to the point, from theologian and writer Timothy Keller: "If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself."

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Considering the KoolAid

Nothing brings the critics howling for my immediate incarceration in a FEMA Death Camp like when I make fun of the conspiracy theorists.  It doesn't seem to matter how dumb the conspiracy theory is -- like yesterday's, wherein we heard that David Bowie and Alan Rickman are still alive, apparently because of Chaldean numerology and the fact that Matt Groening is a Freemason -- if I call these people and their claims loons, I end up getting hate mail.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I won't bore and/or offend the studio audience with excerpts from said hate mail, much of which had grammar and vocabulary indicating IQ levels barely making double digits.  But I will point out something that I've noted before -- even if you ignore the asinine "evidence" these people quote to support their ideas, we have the troubling little problem that all of the horrible things they say are on the way never seem to happen.

Let's start with "Rex 84."  Ever heard of it?  Here's a brief summary:

Rex 84... was a secretive “scenario and drill” developed by the United States federal government to suspend the United States Constitution, declare martial law, place military commanders in charge of state and local governments, and detain large numbers of American citizens who are deemed to be “national security threats,” in the event that the President declares a “State of National Emergency.”  The plan states events causing such a declaration would be widespread U.S. opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad, such as if the United States were to directly invade Central America.  To combat what the government perceived as “subversive activities,” the plan also authorized the military to direct ordered movements of civilian populations at state and regional levels...  

 The Rex 84 Program was originally established on the reasoning that if a “mass exodus” of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA... 

These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general’s signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached.

Sound familiar?  The problem is, "Rex 84" was an idea that cropped up during the Reagan presidency as a "contingency plan for dealing with widespread insurrection," but got spun as the president and his cronies (especially Oliver North) wanting to suspend personal liberties, revoke the constitution, declare martial law, and keep Reagan in office beyond his term limit.

Any of that stuff happen?

I thought so.

How about this one:

A 'national emergency' will provide Bush the raw power he needs to cancel the elections and hold on to even greater executive power.  Over the course of his criminal and illegitimate regime, George W. Bush has assumed powers that in cases of a 'national emergency' make of him an absolute ruler beyond the powers of the Congress or the Courts.  It has all been locked up rather neatly and planned well in advance.  A 'decider' by self-proclamation, Bush conveniently 'decides' what is and what is not a 'national emergency.  He is the sole arbiter. 

The 'mechanism' by which Bush consolidates all his power is called Executive Directive 51...  Signed into law on May 4, 2007, it specifies the 'procedures' to be taken in the wake of a 'catastrophic emergency' -- 'any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions'... 

At hearings of a congressional sub-committee in New Orleans, FEMA official Glenn Cannon acknowledged that it had been considering the use of trains to transport large numbers of people to camps and various locations around the United States.  The revelation was ominous as this use of trains is associated with Adolph Hitler's hellish Third Reich.  The camps and the mass transportation of people to them is a cornerstone in Bush's elaborate and detailed preparations for a declaration of martial law.  To every citizen of the US --whether incarcerated in a hellish concentration camp or not --the declaration of martial means but one thing: an absolute dictatorship!

The various scenarios have main points in common: Bush will, upon any pretext, declare a national emergency, cancel the elections, and impose martial law.  With martial law comes absolute power, a ruthless crack down on dissent, mass arrests and mass incarcerations.  A 'pre-text' is never an obstacle to would-be dictators.

That was a hysterical exposé from a guy who calls himself "The Existentialist Cowboy," written in May of 2008.  And at the risk of being repetitive, did any of that happen, either?

Look, it's not that I don't think evil people exist, that bad stuff can happen, that governments can turn into dictatorships.  Even the shallowest knowledge of history proves otherwise.  And I think awareness, intelligent discussion, and access to information are the surest safeguards against these sorts of things ever happening again.

But fer cryin' in the sink, nothing is accomplished by evidence-free fear talk of conspiracies (Masonic or otherwise), FEMA death camps (complete with guillotines), and top-secret communiqués from super-evil brilliant Illuminati overlords who are so top-secret-super-evil-brilliant that a raving wingnut like Alex Jones can see right through them.

And if that makes me a KoolAid-drinkin'-sheeple, then so be it.

Rhetoric, politics, and the freedom to remain silent

Allow me to go on record as saying that I can't wait for this presidential election to be over.

It's only the beginning of September, and already I am sick unto death of the nasty political rhetoric.  Not the stuff coming from the candidates and their sponsors; I've come to expect that, given our money-driven, whatever-it-takes-to-get-elected system.  What makes me ill, on almost a daily basis, is the ugly invective you hear and see from ordinary citizens and voters.

That sort of thing has become easier to broadcast in the past few decades.  When I was young, if you had a message (nasty or otherwise), your only free choice was to write a letter to the editor.  Otherwise, you had to purchase radio or television time, or rent a billboard.  Now, the entire internet (especially social network sites like Facebook and Twitter) have become the sounding boards for anyone with something they'd like the whole world to hear.  And in an election year, what a lot of people have to say is (1) irrational, (2) rife with overgeneralizations, and (3) just generally unpleasant.

Let me give you just the briefest sampling, from my Facebook page.  Note that the vitriol is coming from both sides of the aisle:

• The top slogan of the Democratic Party is "Bitterly Clinging To Taxes and Abortions."
• Republicans have consistently cut disaster relief in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy and for big corporations.
• Please don't vote us out!  None of us can do real jobs!
• The only way you could vote Republican is if you lack a heart, lack a brain, or both.  So which are you?  The Scarecrow or the Tin Man?
• You lost a debate to a conservative? Time to yell "racism" and blame Fox News.
• The conservative agenda is to make government smaller so that the big corporations have room to move in.
• Democrats want to stick around in America just long enough to see how it ends.
• The Republican Party has no interest in protecting the rights of anyone who isn't an entitled, wealthy, white, heterosexual Christian man.

I usually try to stay out of political discussions -- it's almost always frustrating and almost never accomplishes anything -- so I generally don't respond when people post this stuff.  But I broke my own rule a few days ago, and I responded to one of the above (which one is irrelevant; they're all equally ridiculous) by saying, "Oh, come now.  This is a bit much.  You really think that 50% of the United States actually believes this?"  Within five minutes, there were three responses, to wit:

• Sounds about right to me.
• I love the sarcasm and the parody -- and the point.  This is awesome.
• This is great.  Sharing.

To which I responded:  "I give up."

I honestly do not understand the motivation that drives this stuff.  Yes, both the Democratic and the Republican Parties have a few people who are extremists, whose views are pretty clearly in the "nutjob" category.  Both have elected officials who have broken the law, who have taken bribes, who have committed sexual indiscretions.  But the vast majority of the actual voters -- the people who are the Democratic and Republican Parties, not just the officials they elect to represent them -- are ordinary people, who want the things that all of us want.  A home, a job, security, a safe place to raise their children, food on the table, the freedoms guaranteed them by the Constitution.  Most of them are decent human beings, who would be interesting to sit down and have a beer and a bull session with.  Damn few of them on either side want to "tear down America" or "sell the US to the corporations" or "turn the United States into the Soviet Union" or any of the thousand other things that the purveyors of toxic rhetoric would like you to believe.

Of course, everyone is entitled to state his or her opinion.  That is one of those "freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution" I mentioned earlier.  However, just because you're free to do something doesn't mean that you should.  You are also free not to speak when it does more harm than good, a freedom that more of us should exercise.  The poisonous messages currently flooding social media do nothing but drive people apart, break down dialogue, and spread the message that if you don't agree with me, you must be either deluded or evil.  I fail to see what positive end any of this could possibly accomplish.

Now, don't get me wrong.  By saying, "why can't we just get along?" I'm not saying, "why can't we all agree?"  Liberals and conservatives do differ, if not in what their basic goals are, in how best to achieve those goals.  There are very real points of debate on issues that deserve time, energy, and effort to resolve.  But ugly invective is not debate, and it muddies the water rather than clearing it.  So to those people who share this stuff, and thus keep it alive online, I am respectfully asking you to knock it off.