The 'Bad' Magnifying Glass and the 'Good' Blindfold
"Obama is on vacation... again!"
"Obama is lazy"
"Tell Obama to get off the golf course!"
This is just a microcosm, one that represents what is going on here. Obama has taken vacation, but his 138 days pales in comparison to the 1138 days that Congress has taken.
What causes people to ignore the fact that the Republican-led Congress has taken nearly ten times the vacation that Obama has taken? It's almost comical, and indeed, the perfect point to lead into this because of how disproportionate it is.
Humans have a natural tendency to exaggerate the harm caused by what they deem the 'other', and to dismiss any notion of harm caused by a group that is familiar to them.
It's tribalism at it's core. (In this case, the 'good' Republicans vs the 'bad' Democrats)
Today we have systems, politicians, media, and more that serve to exaggerate the exaggerations already present, entrench them, and enshrine them in our society, and make them ideas that are firmly rooted in our culture.
And it's something that feeds into privilege, whether it be white, male, wealthy, straight, and so on.
Ferguson - They're all rioters and making it about race... no matter how peaceful they will be. But the city has absolutely no problems inside it even though it's putting out more arrest warrants than people who live in the city.
Crime in general - A white person who commits a crime is just mentally ill, an outlier so to speak. A black person commits a crime and the entire community is somehow responsible, they all have to confront what is going on.
Inequality - A safety net for the poor is reprehensible, they should all be viewed with suspicion. But a rich person earned his inheritance and network of other rich people.
And you will find far more examples with even cursory glances, so ask why, and I mean really challenge the people who walk around with this way of thinking... that why some groups are responsible as a whole for their violent members, but other groups are not their keepers. Why the actions of some people merit disdain, but similar (Or even greater) actions by others get a shrug.
The Magnifying Glass of the 'bad other' and the Blindfold of the 'good familiar' will only hold us back a whole, and I think that this kind of increasingly entrenched tribalism will only lead us to ruin in the end.
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[hr][font color="blue"][center]"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen, Anthem (1992)[/center][/font][hr]
