Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for January 16, 2022

Sorry Wiley. Self reflection is not something they can do, unless it comes with a selfie stick

Nowadays, the ideology comes with the T-shirt and not the other way round.

Politics in a nut shell…

Ideology versus idiotogy

Too often though, one side is less right than the other, and the challenge can be considering why your own opinion might be the incorrect one. Other times, the expression “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong” comes to mind.

While the phrase “moving the goalposts” is not correct in this case, its analogy is. keep shifting what you think is your belief and eventually, you end up where you were opposed to.

This is the problem with politics. Take the US, just because the party that is promoting an idea, it is either rejected or accepted along party lines. Remove the party affiliation from that idea and just the idea only on its merits and it then suddenly has overwhelming support or rejection.

While Wiley is showing his cultural separation as being circular in the vertical dimension, in real life it’s in the horizontal, as left and right keep wrapping around until they meet again at the opposite side of the circle from moderation: at the point of revolution, chaos, discord, disorder, and violence. Radically different ideologies, virtually indistinguishable methodologies.

So, circular reasoning expressed?

There’s garden variety “I’m-right-you’re wrong” disagreement which keeps the world turning and always has and then there’s empirical right vs. empirical wrong (or real facts vs. “alternative” facts). It’s the latter conflict that divides us more nowadays.

Kind of a circular argument

Wonder if this is a mobius strip where one ends up 180° from one’s beginning.

There is a simple test for goodness: which side does government and the rich enforce?

" They " – who are " they " ??

What goes around,…

I’ll venture to suggest that today’s Dilbert offers excellent guidance on how to “win” an argument. It’s a common tactic, both online and IRW, well illustrated.

Isn’t that why megalomaniacs post their mundane actions on Facebook?

Step 6: Perform Monty Python’s “Fish Slapping Dance” until the burden of critical thinking looks appealing

Once upon a time, long before the former one became president, I had a belief that 80% of people were sheep: they would rather believe what an authority figure told them than to think for themselves.

Sheep fall out about half and half to the right or left. At the current time, the right has a much better propaganda machine: it’s easy to rally people when you can scare them with ghost stories of liberals, and communists, and LGBT and BLM and Asians and Latinos and Muslims and Jews (Space Laser and all) and “me too” women and voter frauds and cheats and woke this and woke that and Cancel Culture and CRT (whatever that is) and … well, whatever distracts from the events of January 6th.

So 80% of the population are like billiard balls and behave in accordance with Newton’s second law: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Civilized people put cognitive thought and critical thinking in the gap between action and reaction. It is within this gap that civilization exists.

I wish I could draw. I would have a cartoon that shows and elephant in a magicians outfit. On one side is a box labeled “SMOKE” and it has in it things like LGBTQ, BLM, Asians, Latinos, Muslims, etc. On the other side is a box labeled “MIRRORS” and it has Woke, Cancel Culture, Stop the Steal, etc.

In the middle is a coffin marked Democracy – RIP – January 6th, 2021.

The caption, of course, is “Watch me make this disappear.”

FALSE EQUIVALENCY ALERT!!!!!

What happened to “believe in yourself”? Do your own thing? You, be you? Follow your own path to happiness? Be your own man? Be the hammer, not the nail? Never mind, I know. I know! We’re all in this together.

more like the right grab the line and pull it their way.

My New Year’s resolution; ‘’Be more patient with those who don’t appreciate my genius.’’

Ideology is fine when it remains within the constraints of objective reality.

I can’t tell you what is the best way until I listen to hours of talk radio for days on end. If I had an idea of my own I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

Its obvious. Wearing shorts and a t-shirt when you appear in a Sunday comic is wrong.

This was in the Washington Post this week. By Philip Bump – National correspondent – 1/12/22

“One of the recurring fantasies of his (trump) political opponents was that someone would rise up and challenge him on this habit (of spewing lies). That some reporter would rise from her seat during a news conference and forcefully pin Trump down, challenging and picking apart his claims as he sputtered in response. Members of the press were encouraged to deploy this tactic; when they didn’t do so, Trump’s critics threw up their hands in exasperation.

It’s a desire that’s born of a fundamental misunderstanding of the human personality. Many or most of us like to consider ourselves rational, considering the evidence before us and reaching reasoned conclusions based on what we see. Presented with a refutation of a belief, we like to think, we would change our minds and acknowledge our errors. Ergo: Present Trump with refutations of his claims, and he’d crumble.

The problem, of course, is that this isn’t how it works. Humans are emotional more robustly than they are rational, and when a belief is rooted in emotion — desire, fear, anger — you can’t reason your way around it. Put succinctly, you can’t combat irrationality with reason.

Many people may not realize it, but the media tried the confrontation strategy on Trump’s misinformation efforts. I wrote about one such occasion in 2019, when Trump’s repeated elevation of false data about immigration was challenged by reporters at the White House. Trump, in charge of the microphone, simply pushed through it and moved on. There was no sudden collapse by Trump or an acknowledgment of his errors. There was just bullying and bluster, and time ran out."

Ideology is emotional – lacking reason. You see it in many posts and responses on the various threads of Go Comics. Granted, we are emotional creatures, however, we as a nation need leaders that can temper emotion with analysis and sound critical thinking.

The origin story of all fundamentalist religions—Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu…

Trump skips Step Five.

Never “I”, never “you”, only “we”!

What gets everyone in trouble is step 2. That your way is the best way and everybody should follow your way. The reality is that most people don’t like being told what they have to do by someone else.

Step six kill your opponent for blocking your way in step five.

One day, making tracks In the prairie of Prax,Came a North-Going ZaxAnd a South-Going Zax.

And it happened that both of them came to a placeWhere they bumped. There they stood.Foot to foot. Face to face.

“Look here, now!” the North-Going Zax said, “I say!You are blocking my path. You are right in my way.I’m a North-Going Zax and I always go north.Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!”

“Who’s in whose way?” snapped the South-Going Zax.“I always go south, making south-going tracks.So you’re in MY way! And I ask you to moveAnd let me go south in my south-going groove.”

Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.“I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.And I’ll prove to you that I won’t change my waysIf I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!”

“And I’ll prove to YOU,” yelled the South-Going Zax,“That I can stand here in the prairie of PraxFor fifty-nine years! For I live by a ruleThat I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.Never budge! That’s my rule. Never budge in the least!Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!I’ll stay here, not budging! I can and I willIf it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!”

Well…Of course the world didn’t stand still. The world grew.In a couple of years, the new highway came throughAnd they built it right over those two stubborn ZaxAnd left them there, standing un-budge in their tracks. [The Tax, Dr. Seuss, 1961]

Nowadays Step 3 is MANDATE your position…

that’s why we should stick to the bible

I’ve never seen Steps 1&2 in people that make the decisions

In a valid ideology, one size doesn’t fit all. You only overthrow the government through the legitimate electoral process. You only lie to yourself.

Who needs self-reflection when you got confirmation bias.

Another one for the refrigerator.

The correct response to what is self reflection in the world to day would be: ’that’s what are mirrors are for’….doing anything other than that would take far too much effort for todays self absorbed people who have only 30 second attention span.

If only it worked that way …

My “value system”: don’t be a dick. I often fail but do try to recognize those failures, correct myself and do better.

Back…where ya started

Here we go ’round again

Day after day I get up and I say

c’mon do it again (doitagaindoitagain…)

—The Kinks

Not sure about the last panel. At this point in the game the only reason to come closer again is to be within punching range.

Very good!

Finally got some good strips today.

I still do have a rotary phone in my finished basement. It works and is a novelty on then wall, as part of the over a dozen phones in our house.

If you are under the influence of an ideology, it controls you. No self-reflection, no questioning, no doubts ever. We all need some doubt and reflection.

Imagine the Nazis and how they wrecked the democracy of Germany.

They gave no quarter.

They knew they were 100% right.

They never questioned their leader.

They never questioned themselves.

They were either afraid or cultishly committed which became the same thing in outcome.

Have you seen similar anywhere today?

Ah, centrist horseshoe theory. Wonderful!

Oh, Wiley! The subsequent comments illustrate your epiphany!

Proving that what Goes Around, Comes Around.

Speak for yourself, lefty. You want self reflection on your life values? Move to California, quit living in conservative utopia while preaching liberalism from the pulpit.

Many people would love to quash the burden of critical thinking.

Sigh. Both-sides-are-equally-bad is so pre-2016.

I like the story of the three novices who went on a journey together and stopped for the night to sleep under a mulberry tree. When they woke up, two of them began to point at each other and laugh, but the third quietly got out a handkerchief and wiped away the spots the purple berries had made on his face.

What goes around, comes around.