As all of you, I'm appalled at the poster being featured in the front page diary at this moment. It portrays victims of the Dachau concentration camp, and equates them with "national socialized" health care. More appalling, several elected Republican officials were on hand to stir up these troops of Teabaggers, birthers and the like.
Perhaps these Republicans, and the folks at that rally, should become more in touch with concept of cognitive dissonance, defined as the "uncomfortable feeling caused by two contradictory ideas simultaneously."
My general impression is that none of the folks there would have that uncomfortable feeling. Here's why.
Not so long ago, this past summer in fact, a man named James Von Brunn shot and killed a security officer at the Holocaust museum. It was quickly revealed that Von Brunn was white supremacist and a Holocaust denier.
What wasn't so widely reported, however, was that Von Brunn was also a "birther." Von Brunn was indeed a walking contradiction of all kinds, denying the Holocaust in one breath and saying Hitler "didn't kill enough Jews" in another.
Regardless, if Von Brunn was amongst the ranks of the "birthers," it is a fair bet that some of the same folks marching around the Capitol today with this disgusting sign hold similar views as Von Brunn. And hence the problem of cognitive dissonance, or lack of it, comes into play.
You can't deny the Holocaust one hand, then equate Obama's policies to it on another.
You can't tout Hitler as a model, as Von Brunn did, and then say Obama = Hitler as a negative against the President.
You can't equate Obama to reverse racism as Glenn Beck did, and then display racist signs and slogans about Obama on the other.
Well, let me clarify...I suppose you CAN do all of those things, but if you do so without any cognitive dissonance, it is not a sign of legitimate dissent...
it's a sign of mental illness.
This is the deal with the devil the modern GOP has made. Pandora's Box was opened in 2008, with dangerous, vile rhetoric via Sarah Palin and her ilk, and with dangerous, vile consequences. It has to end.
Every Republican who shows up for these type of rallies MUST be made to answer about their association with these individuals in 2010.
Every. Last. One. Of. Them.
If the President had to answer about every association he had, from Rev. Wright to Bill Ayers, then these Republicans must be made to answer for there association with these peddlers of hate.
They need to demonstrate, at a minimum, sort of cognitive dissonance about these tactics.
Otherwise, they are mentally ill, and not fit to serve our nation.