The Faces of the Teabaggers

[filkertom]

AmericaBlog aims us to a mind-boggling video interview with people at the protest in Washington, DC this past weekend. It's almost ten minutes, but I guarantee you've never seen or heard any compendium of the mindset of these folks like this. The interviewer shows his subjects great respect and lets them speak their minds... and, boy, do they.

ETA: A thing -- the interviewer tells a number of people that the first "czar" in American government was appointed by Reagan. That is not correct: Nixon appointed the first "drug czar", Jerome Jaffe. Some people make the case that you can take it all the way back to FDR.

Comments

[alverant.livejournal.com]

Good question. I've wondered the same thing. How does can a government by the people function properly when there are so many people (ignorant or otherwise)? So many people, so many points of view, so many individual needs, and so on. We tout democracy as the greatest form of government ever practiced because it's what we are and because it we haven't found anything better. But that doesn't mean there's a better way out there. I've tried to come up with one, but every idea I had has a big flaw that leads to exploitation.

We don't elect people on the basis of what is good for the nation. We elect people on how close their views are to ours. We assume we know what's best and as the world grows more complex, that gets harder to do. I don't understand everything about healthcare, etc but I'd sooner trust Obama to handle it than McCain.

[louisadkins.livejournal.com]

We don't elect people on the basis of what is good for the nation. We elect people on how close their views are to ours. We assume we know what's best and as the world grows more complex, that gets harder to do.

This is a good point.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

Every concept of a functioning governmental system I have ever had has to do with exactly this - we live in our monkeysphere, and we really can't handle tribes much larger than 150.

Our brains say so.


It's science. (google monkeysphere)

We need to live in little, interdependent communities of about that size, give or take 100 people.

Problem is, how to keep Monkey Tribe A from beating on Monkey Tribe B to take their delicious bananas?

Gah...we should all just give up thumbs and be dolphins.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I did google monkeysphere and read a very interesting article on cracked.com about it. With some introspection, I realized much of that is true. There is a point where we stop seeing people as people and start seeing them as two dimensional stereotypes.

I think what we have to do is acknowledge that even if we think about the 15 children who died in a bus accident in New Delhi with less emotion as if our pet died, those 15 kids were like us. A bit of empathy goes a long way. Otherwise we wind up not giving a fuck about anyone else and that means everyone else won't give a fuck about us.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

FYI, this was the article I found
http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

I admit, I find the theory has that disturbing ring of truth to it. I wonder how easy it is to move people in and out of your monkey sphere. For example when I work I think of one of our clients more as a person than "someone I have to keep happy". Outside of work, that client is just another person I'd get pissed at if they were blocking me in traffic (particularly if I didn't recognize them).