Language and the Illusion of Meaning
Anyone who's ever walked into a voting booth unprepared, will find out very quickly how confusing a particular bill can be, especially when trying to decipher it's true meaning. This isn't simply a case of complex legal language being hard to understand. But, is more about consciously trying to confuse the issue in order to mislead the casual voter. It is, in reality, a calculated subterfuge. And, it is far more common than one might think. Politicians, many of whom are and lawyers, understand this.
Confusion is the primary attribute when using misdirection. If president Obama has one real strength, it's the ability to use sleight of hand to misdirect the nations attention. For instance, create an immigration crisis by use of executive power—which he did two years ago—then systematically hinder our immigration services from doing their job, and you can accomplish with sleight of hand far more than ever would’ve been possible otherwise. All you need is a compliant media, which he has, with one exception, and the rest is easy.
That's why arguing about political issues based on simple narratives “Well, you know, the republicans are for the rich and democrats are for the poor.” won't get us very far. In reality, politics is little different than religion. Too much of it is faith based, with the various true-believers offering a handful of talking-points as a substitute for reality. The fundamentals, the actual meaning of things, the legal, moral and economic issues involved, are invariably, hidden from sight. It is a two dimensional farce, played out to create the illusion of meaning and nothing more.
The audience always plays a very necessary part in the trick, they must willfully suspend disbelief in order for the illusion to work. In other words, they have to want to be fooled. Why? Because we all know that magic isn't real. It won't matter, though, as long as the audience goes along. And so far, we have, like lambs to the slaughter.
Confusion is the primary attribute when using misdirection. If president Obama has one real strength, it's the ability to use sleight of hand to misdirect the nations attention. For instance, create an immigration crisis by use of executive power—which he did two years ago—then systematically hinder our immigration services from doing their job, and you can accomplish with sleight of hand far more than ever would’ve been possible otherwise. All you need is a compliant media, which he has, with one exception, and the rest is easy.
That's why arguing about political issues based on simple narratives “Well, you know, the republicans are for the rich and democrats are for the poor.” won't get us very far. In reality, politics is little different than religion. Too much of it is faith based, with the various true-believers offering a handful of talking-points as a substitute for reality. The fundamentals, the actual meaning of things, the legal, moral and economic issues involved, are invariably, hidden from sight. It is a two dimensional farce, played out to create the illusion of meaning and nothing more.
The audience always plays a very necessary part in the trick, they must willfully suspend disbelief in order for the illusion to work. In other words, they have to want to be fooled. Why? Because we all know that magic isn't real. It won't matter, though, as long as the audience goes along. And so far, we have, like lambs to the slaughter.