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Voting with Emotion
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  Tonight on the Front Porch, we're going to figure out what makes our political brains tick. Our guest, Drew Westen, says we use our emotions to decide who to vote for more than we use rational thought. He lays out all of his research in his new book, The Political Brain. Tonight, we'll talk with him about his work and what politicians can learn from it.
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Rational thought is what evokes emotions. I'm really tired of pretending we are purely "intellectual," with no feeling behind what causes us to decide things. We have many "senses," that cause reactions. If something is grotesque and cruel, and it affects us negatively, as much of the politics of today affects me, correct, my emotions cause me to choose to speak up and voice my thoughts evoked by emotion. There is NOTHING abnormal about allowing our emotions to assist in desicion making...If we had NO conscience, and felt nothing, our world would be bloodier than the elite banking system that rules it has created. It is the caring, empathetic, compassionate emotions of HUMANS, that stands up against abject violence and cruelty. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Schweitzer, the prophets....Their actions and wisdom were born of things that made them FEEL SOMETHING. In my view, there is NOTHING rational about a society that calls itself civilized, and Under God, while systematically consuming its own planet to death, sickening its own young with toxic "food," and supports "public" media with an agenda so obvious and narrow, it benefits a very few who buy into it.
How about interviewing people about books that explain why it is that in 2007, in a nation claiming a Christian foundation, we need 16 spy agencies, listening in on US citizens phone and emails, security spending in the billions, and walls around communities? This to me, is not rational or civilized.
Could it be that our habits and behaviors are cruel, thoughtless, aggressive and environmentally suicidal? Could it be that the modern world, built upon the slavery of others, animals and humans, has finally come full circle? We should be examining the political FAILURE known as Congress, to do what is needed to protect those who pay for it against toxic carcinogenic foods, chemicals, and products. We can't even trust the organic label anymore. The public media shold be focusing on US systems in cardiac arrest and the dire need for a political overhaul. A party that protects children from the many forms of predation rampant in our society, might bode well.