A Tea Party of Two Legged Snakes

A Tea Party of Two Legged Snakes 

 The Two Legged Snakes who call themselves the Tea Party grossly (mis)associate themselves with the principles of the American Revolution …. when nothing could be further from the truth. Their Tea Party is not a justifiable rebellion against taxes collected to benefit a distant aristocracy and is no less a fantasy than the tea parties little girls have with their dolls and pretend friends. Only this one is uglier, louder and brimming with simplistic, snaky sophistry such as misassociation, baiting and reinventing history. 

This (supposedly) ‘grass roots’ political movement’s recent use of the term ‘gangster government’ to characterize President Obama’s administration demonstrates their use of the Two Legged Snake (people who use sophistry and other manipulations) technique of misassociation. There is no demonstrable connection between President Obama and gangsters. But the association doesn’t sound good and, in fact, surely sounds mighty scary to the Fox news audience, who unquestioningly believe what they’ve been told by their favorite conservative pundit. Associating President Obama with gangster culture is ridiculously out of bounds and engenders another Two Legged Snake manipulative technique: baiting. 

 Baiting is making outlandish statements in an attempt to access the more primitive parts of our brains that are reactive and ‘animalistic’, the ‘fight or flight’ area. The higher brain stem locations that are more suited for analysis are largely bypassed because of the loud emotional reaction to the outrageous bombast. Because their opponents are too pissed off to think straight it’s then easier to draw them into a catch phrase battle where volume is more important than making sense. And that’s a battle they can win. 
 

 The Tea Party and others of their ilk will continue to use these techniques and more as long as they have an unwitting, dupable audience. The task for those of us who can see this blatantly manipulative sophistry is to help our fellow Americans see it as well.

Slack/2010