I would like to give an example of how one form of successful political manipulation is being administered to society very much under the radar. This example is so powerful that those under its influence could technically be classified as suffering from Stockholm’s syndrome; which is the condition where a hostage identifies with their captors to the extent they will protect the captors.
First a disclaimer; I would like to say that this social conditioning is present through all political parties and I am in no way taking sides as this dynamic transcends political affiliations. The source of the manipulation is always from special interest groups using almost infinite sums of money to influence the system to their advantage. Liberal and conservative positions are both equally valid and simply represent two different preferences in how we structure society and government.
While there are so many examples I could choose from, I selected this one for the reason that when you apply common sense and logic, looking from the outside, the social conditioning involved could not be more obvious.
In reference to the tax debate and whether the richest of Americans should pay at least as much percentage as the middle class; I’m sure you have heard a thousand times that we must give tax breaks to “job creators” so they will be willing to hire more people. In fact you have heard that exact same expression verbatim regardless if it came from the mouth of a congressman, or a career media-pundit or a talk show host. This should alert your spidey-senses that a focused program has been issued throughout the conservative circles where this message springs from; for if it were not a scripted movement; people would not address it verbatim and in such a repetitious cycle.
Observing this message from the outside, it becomes obvious that the core message is hollow for a reason of basic fundamental economics. The engine of Americas financial industry is the middle-class. The fuel for this engine is when the middle-class is healthy and has disposable income to spend. When the middle-class wants a product and has the money to purchase the product, a demand is born.
When demand is present in the market place, this demand will be filled immediately. Sometimes the demand is filled by a mega corporation, and sometimes it is filled by an entrepreneur. Companies do not hire employees if there is no demand for their product. And if there is a demand for their product, you can rest assured nothing will prevent them from hiring adequate employees to produce the product.
Of course after thinking this through we don’t even need an MBA to understand the obvious logic here. Yet, there are tens of millions of middle-class citizens who staunchly support the upper-class paying a lowered percentage tax rate than themselves, who are firmly stuck in the middle-class.
It is very difficult for me to understand how a middle-class family would prefer to subsidize the wealthy by taking money out of the family bank account, before the wealthiest Americans pay at least an equal percentage. The math does not line up, and it fails our commons sense test.
I would not know of a better example to show that Its time for us to explore new political paradigms, and understand the importance of fact checking any belief we may be aligning ourselves with.