Stupid Reasons

I heard [identity redacted for shame and despair] having a political discussion the other day. It was via telephone, so I only caught the one side of the conversation, but I'm reasonably sure I got the gist of it. Just so as to not seem partisan, I won't even state which side of the aisle this person is on. Basically, I got this statement: "They won't do anything unless its actually destroying the United States." In other words, this person believes (and I'm not making this up, they've said as much before) that the side they're not on actively 'wants' to destroy the US. Not that their designs are cynical and happen to be destroying the US, nor that they are well meaning and she just thinks they will destroy the US, but that they actually want to destroy the US, that that is their goal.

Ya know how during the Civil War, all these soldiers were writing letters to home. Almost none of them talk about fighting to preserve slavery. If they mention the cause of the war, and why they're fighting, it is about Northern Aggression and States Rights. But of course, the war was fought for slavery, regardless of what the rank and file thought they were fighting for; the Declarations of Intransigence, I mean Declarations of Independence from the seceding states all mention the need to preserve slavery, and no historian ever thinks the war would have been fought if not for slavery. If we want to put a caveat on it on it, we can say the war was actually fought to preserve the Union, not to end slavery (from the North's perspective), but the south had seceded to preserve slavery. Despite that people will deny this, they are doing so because of their delusion, just as the soldiery, if they really believed they were fighting merely for states' rights, thought so because of their delusion.

I have some questions: How much do they know they're deluded? Do they recognize that their real beliefs are immoral and therefore lie to themselves? Do they self delude and create a wall to protect their sense of righteousness? Are they actually trying to destroy the United States, as they presume the 'other side' is?

And because I'm "woke" about human fallibility and my place in it, how much do I commit the same thing? Is my analysis off? How much have I been duped by propaganda without realizing? I have no qualms admitting I am left of center, but I hardly toe any party line. Obama, as talented a statesman as I think he was, still committed the US to more endless warring and filled cabinet positions with corporate powers. Some in his administration already have been accused of war crimes, and as time passes I have no doubt that Obama himself will be found guilty of war crimes as well and need to avoid the Hague, despite his Nobel prize.

But on the other hand, so as not to sound as though I'm trying to equivocate unnecessarily and come down too hard on myself or like minded folks, I'm not the one who naively thinks "the other side" is out to destroy America (or the world). Even if I think we are headed toward a multi-front ecological cataclysm that the "other side" refuses to recognize and act on, despite ample evidence, I don't think they are actively trying to destroy the world. I just think that certain truths are too painful for them to accept, or that they conflict too much with their world view, and therefore they cannot wrap their heads around it.

This is definitely an evil thing, but I don't think the people themselves are evil...or at least I don't think they are intentionally evil. Even Trump and his cronies, who I'm convinced actually are ushering in one of the greatest existentially threatening eras of all time, I don't think "they're trying to destroy America," even though I'm sure they are actually destroying America. I don't think Trump supporters are all trying to destroy America; hell I don't even toe the common line that they are all racist. I don't believe that for a second.

And those Civil War soldiers who said they were fighting for states' rights, not the preservation of slavery?  I really believe they meant that! I really think they thought they were fighting for a righteous cause. They were certainly indifferent to the slaves and no matter what, guilty of not trying to end the evil institution themselves, but I honestly don't think they thought they were "fighting to preserve slavery", just as the soldiers fighting today think they are fighting for American Freedom when obviously all our wars are about American Hegemony, not Freedom (unless you believe that to maintain our freedom we must maintain our Hegemony...one might wonder then how we were free before our ascent to world dominance, and also whether we think any other nations deserve to be free, since they don't have hegemonies...don't hurt your head).

What's the real question I'm asking? I'm not really going anywhere unfortunately, this is a kind of thrashing and question rather than analysis. How does one work on somebody who has an obviously ill formed belief? How would I ever have convinced a Civil War soldier that his side was actually fighting for the preservation of slavery, rather than States' Rights? I can't even convince modern 'Confederates' of the same thing? Is our intransigence only about preserving our precious egos? And is that a human failing that we should understand and sympathize with, or is it an evil worth killing over? And how can we ever know if we are not demonstrating the exact same quality while trying to change it in the other?