Cognitive Dissonance? Oops...

Got myself in a lot of trouble dropping that phrase into a comment thread about OWS the other day. Apparently, 'cognitive dissonance' is an annoying term to a wingnut because they have to Google it to find out what it means before denouncing it as a "trendy leftwing buzzword". Hmm... so that's how it works these days? We don't argue substance, we don't discuss the actual issues, we just denounce words? George Orwell's 1984 needs a re-write.

Let's see more of this crap in action...

So USA Today has a story about young entrepreneurs who've opted to start businesses instead of trying to get employed in today's non-hiring economy. Good for them, I said. But with one caveat:

It's great that more young people are starting up businesses, but the implication of the story - that this is what 'smart people' should be doing rather than trying to get jobs - is offensive and stupid. Working people are one half of the capitalist equation: they are the real wealth creators who make entrepreneurs wealthy by producing and buying the stuff they make.

I thought it was a reasonable point to make but... no. See, them RW folks now believe "no-one owes anyone a job" and that starting your own business is the only way to go. Wow. We've reached a point where the rather modest expectation that you can graduate from college and get yourself a job is now viewed as an "entitlement" with all the negative implications the word now carries for the RW?

You might think my argument might be pretty sound:

1) Businesses need employees to make stuff
2) Businesses need customers to buy the stuff
3) Employees and customers are the same damn people

But no. In our crazy Ayn Rand/Ron Paul world of high-fallutin', small-minded nonsense, businesses are supposed to somehow thrive without 'greedy employees' and without a market. I'm still waiting for a conservative to explain how their capitalist equivalent of the immaculate conception works... though I'll probably be waiting a long time.