Reply #27: But empathy is how you overcome the lack of objectivity in some

[applegrove]

emotions. You accept that other people will have legit emotions too and you take into account the emotions of all people when you set policy (that is how you get to "war is bad" & "when I vote I don't always get everything i want in a leader..but I get what I need". Both of these seem to be lacking from the elites behind Bush.

And they encourage tribalism (they give the rich tax cuts & hope for a sales tax to replace income tax and further make the tax system way regressive...that way the middle class will carry a much bigger burden for social programs and thus want them to end and reduce their practice of sympathy with the poor.. because they will buckle under the weight and collapse as an empathetic class). Tribalism is just encouraging the practice of empathy to be directed only at people exactly like you (Terry Schiavo was a upper middle class white girl).

You are right that emotion gives meaning to it all. And that is exactly why we face such propaganda. So that there is no longer 'meaning' in our arguments and we loose touch with the great human beings we are.

That is the plan.