Open-mindedness is hypocritical

I got into an argument with my mom about Obama, and whether or not he is to blame for any of the ailings of society’s latest problems.  Her defense is always the same.  When I start to berate the right-wingers, or greedy people, or stupid people, she always tells me that I should learn to see things from every side.  And my response is usually that there is no ‘other side’.  There are the greedy, stupid people, and that’s it.

I think that people who always bow in deference to fake open-mindedness are misguided.  They think that accepting all points of view raises them above everyone else.  They think that as long as we can all give room for everyone’s idiosyncratic point of view, it levels the field for everyone.  But, in reality, it invites destruction and feeble-mindedness.

For example, to give any credence to the view that deregulation is a good and vital thing for the economy, and therefore allow self-interest to be weighed more heavily than social responsibility, immediately puts selfishness first.  And, it does not add into context the way that self-interest, and more specifically deregulation, is abused by people to subvert and avoid the governmental faculties that are supposed to keep consumers safe.  So, even though all of the problems with salmonella and disgusting conditions at food processing plants are obviously a symptom of ineffective regulation, people still think that deregulation is viable because there are greedy, uneducated, short-sighted people that want it.  Because there are people who want to cripple the government, make it ineffective and therefore give themselves power to cut every corner and cost that they can… since those people exist, obviously we should take their views with just as much seriousness as responsible people who want to protect the people buying those products, right?  It’s all fucking ridiculous.

Creationism is taught in public schools alongside evolution, insulting science and scientific thought with quaint, stupid religious beliefs; gay and lesbian people can’t even get married because of xenophobic and discriminatory practices; minorities are subjugated by narrow-minded white people; poor people are forever trampled on by the rich; America endlessly pours its resources into immoral, criminal wars being waged with no clear plan or reason, which is also a factor on fueling anti-American sentiment and action; the People are turned into cattle-like slaves by the few people who want to rule over them by monetizing their daily lives, and by creating systems that literally turn the less fortunate into economic slaves; the planet heads toward cataclysmic destruction because of greedy industrialists who want to suck every last bit of commercial energy from the earth and make money off of it, and control the world through it.  All of these are obvious reasons that you can’t just accept all points of view as valid.  There are right ways of thinking about problems, and there are wrong ways.  The anger I feel towards contemporary American behavior and thought is so visceral that I don’t even have the ability to feel any sense of hope for the people anymore.  They are lost to me, because they are so ridiculously misguided.

They are faults of the most basic sense.  They are mistakes in logic, because the anti-logical thinking is supplied by those who want control.  And yet, still people believe they are valid for some reason.  I can’t even find the proper words to describe just how disappointing it is to be an American.  It’s like you found out that we are going to nuke half of the planet because God will cause it to rain gold from the skies on the surviving half.