COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Most likely you've heard that term before, but probably didn't know the definition – just like me, until I looked it up.

It is defined as: “Anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or incompatible attitudes, beliefs or the like, in other words, seeing one thing and believing another”

Politicians (but mostly Democrat politicians) usually fall victim to this aberration. To listen to today's politicians, they all seem to be in favor of “balanced budgets”, but we still have unbalanced budgets year after year. They all seem to see the light and the righteousness of curbing government spending, but do just the opposite in practice.

President Obama keeps saying that in these dire down economic times, we should all make sacrifices, but then goes out and plays over 116 rounds of golf during these past 4 years and during dire down economic times. Is that what you call sacrificing? He keeps promoting the term “shared sacrifice”, but goes about with his wife, “Moochelle”, of living the high life. Of course, even the President should enjoy some recreation/vacation time, but isn't it a bit much when you can do all that golf and also go on multiple family vacations at posh resorts over the summer and winter when many others don't even have a job or an income? He should've set an example for the rest of us to follow. He is the poster boy for the expression, “do as I say, not as I do”. He seems to be milking the perks of the presidency to the hilt, the taxpaying public be damned.

Our foreign policy towards Israel is another case in point where “cognitive dissonance” is in play. Our leaders see and say that Israel should stop building settlements because it might rile up the “Palestinians” and that the Palestinians are living in “occupied territory” controlled by the Israeli's, but he hardly ever mentions, if at all, the rocket attacks upon innocent Israeli citizens as the reason why the Israeli's are reluctant to negotiate with the terrorists (the PLO and Hamas). Seeing one thing but believing another, seems to be the “modus operandi” of this Obama Administration.

To further illustrate my point, the movers and shakers in our government, realize that our education system is in dire straits, graduating many “functional illiterates, even with a record amount of money being spent to make education “better”, but then they ask for more money on top of the money they have already wasted by their failed educational policies. It's like throwing more good money (which we have very little of) down the proverbial rat hole. A perfect example was the Wash. D.C. Schools. About 9 years ago, in 2004, Wash. D.C. Instituted a “school voucher” program, on a pilot basis, to give some kids (approx. 1,500 kids) the opportunity to attend a private or parochial school. From all indications, the parents (and the kids) loved it and the students attending these private schools were thriving and learning in that environment. So what happens, the teachers union, a major benefactor of the Democrats, objected and convinced the Congress and Obama to pull the plug on funding this program in 2011, thereby putting those 1,500 students back into the failing Wash. D.C. public schools. But, in 2012, the Obama Administration, relented, through mounting pressure from Republicans and D.C. Parents (who are almost all Democrats), and he authorized 85 more slots to the original number of students getting “Opportunity Scholarships” (a/k/a school vouchers). But, instead of expanding this program, because it was exceeding predicted expectations, to thousands more minority students stuck in failing schools, he reinstated the program, but for only 85 more students. If that isn't “cognitive dissonance”, than I don't know what it is?

The stupidity of the Congress and the stupidity of the residents of Wash. D.C., by voting out the Mayor, who supported vouchers, a couple of years ago, and having the innovative school superintendent, Michelle Rhee, resign, shows that, in some cases, people deserve what they get. They “cut off their noses to spite their faces”, that is a saying that certainly describes the actions of these stupid people who are the poster children for the term “cognitive dissonance”. Agree?

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann