Republicans, Abortion and Cognitive Dissonance

Samantha Bee of the Daily Show recently logged an excellent two-minute segment on abortion, a woman’s right to choose and the Republican convention. The whole segment’s quite good but you can start at 01:15 if you’re in a hurry, where Jon Stewart introduces the “human life amendment” plank of the Republican platform that would essentially outlaw abortion as murder by applying the 14th Amendment to the unborn. Romney doesn’t agree with this…and Republicans are fine with it. Why? Because they feel that freedom is the most basic right in America and Romney has the right to choose his own opinions.

Watch the short interviews and see for yourself.

The Republican Platform by Samantha Bee (The Daily Show)

Cognitive dissonance doesn’t seem adequate to describe what’s going on here. It might be inconsistency in applying a moral system; it might be a lack of empathy or dearth of sophistication in thought; or maybe people are just solipsistic bags of ego. Occam’s razor is not kind.

Though the Daily Show is legendary for craftily editing videos, it doesn’t seem like that’s what’s going on here. The people damn themselves because they honestly don’t see anything wrong with what they’re saying. They just don’t see it.