Elm
02-13-2011, 09:58 PM
*below is a copy of a response I posted on another forum - I believe it has useful information for people entering into campaigning for the first time*
Outside of the discussion of the particular scenario Danny described, he is correct.
Most people make decisions (not just political) based on emotion - most are unaware they do it. Once a person has committed to a position they are emotionally invested in it and will defend their position against all attacks, and for most people logical attacks are the weakest (because that is not how they make decisions to begin with). Since TV want to pick the single best indicator of future presidents? Height. People like tall people. Yup, we are hairless apes making monkey-brained decisions. Most of us at least.
However for those of us that understand this, including Danny, it behooves us even more to show strong support for Ron Paul. The unthinking people don't really have any choice in the matter because they don't think. Now the people like Danny who can think and understand the gravity of what is involved but refuse to do the right thing - they are immoral - others are simply amoral because they don't have the system developed to understand what they are doing.
So how do we get those who make superficial decisions to happen to side with logic? I say happen to because logic really will have nothing to do with winning them over - we will have to know how to emotionally counter the emotional arguments and appeal of other campaigns while having emotionally strong arguments on our side. FORGET LOGIC -literally it is irrelevant in the political world.
Once we have stronger emotional positions by a wide enough margin politicians (of every stripe) will start spouting words closer and closer to our successful emotional arguments. This isn't because they've thought about or even believe it or we've swayed them emotionally, it is because the people will vote them out if they say things that conflict with the people's emotional default setting (which now simply happens to also be the logical position). The politicians don't want to lose power so they will say things (and vote) the way that makes the people emotionally happy enough to not vote for their opposition or (more importantly) not upset them enough to vote at all.
Outside of the discussion of the particular scenario Danny described, he is correct.
Most people make decisions (not just political) based on emotion - most are unaware they do it. Once a person has committed to a position they are emotionally invested in it and will defend their position against all attacks, and for most people logical attacks are the weakest (because that is not how they make decisions to begin with). Since TV want to pick the single best indicator of future presidents? Height. People like tall people. Yup, we are hairless apes making monkey-brained decisions. Most of us at least.
However for those of us that understand this, including Danny, it behooves us even more to show strong support for Ron Paul. The unthinking people don't really have any choice in the matter because they don't think. Now the people like Danny who can think and understand the gravity of what is involved but refuse to do the right thing - they are immoral - others are simply amoral because they don't have the system developed to understand what they are doing.
So how do we get those who make superficial decisions to happen to side with logic? I say happen to because logic really will have nothing to do with winning them over - we will have to know how to emotionally counter the emotional arguments and appeal of other campaigns while having emotionally strong arguments on our side. FORGET LOGIC -literally it is irrelevant in the political world.
Once we have stronger emotional positions by a wide enough margin politicians (of every stripe) will start spouting words closer and closer to our successful emotional arguments. This isn't because they've thought about or even believe it or we've swayed them emotionally, it is because the people will vote them out if they say things that conflict with the people's emotional default setting (which now simply happens to also be the logical position). The politicians don't want to lose power so they will say things (and vote) the way that makes the people emotionally happy enough to not vote for their opposition or (more importantly) not upset them enough to vote at all.