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The Politicians’ Cognitive Response: Kill Assange!

Take the kindest, gentlest, pet dog, stamp on its foot with all your might, and it’ll turn round and try to bite you. It’s a reaction. The animal doesn’t think – it reacts. It’s what animals do when they’re subjected to pain, or fear. A dog that develops a sudden belly ache may well try to bite at its own stomach.

The instinctive urge to turn on those we believe don’t act in our best interests is still prevalent among human beings. Yet Homo sapiens is able to overcome this instinctive reaction; it has an ability not given to lower animals – the power of cognitive response.

Response is vastly superior to reaction. It involves the use of conscious thought processes. Reaction is entirely instinctive, any brain involvement being on a purely autonomic level. Unlike a dog, when Homo sapiens reacts to a situation that causes it pain, or fear, it usually manifests in the emotional form known as ‘revenge’.

It was to this superior power of cognitive response that Jesus of Nazareth eluded when he staggered his disciples by telling them, “Love thine enemies.” To the Jews of that time, living under the sword of Rome, sworn to banish the invaders from the Holy Land, he must have seemed crazy. But Jesus preached love. He realized there was no future for mankind while one nation was constantly trying to annihilate another out of some vague sense of self-righteous revenge.

At no time was this demonstrated more starkly than immediately following the events of 9/11/2001, when the vengeful blood-lust of American citizenry completely blocked out the love and compassion emanating from all corners of the globe. Instead, a mass wave of negative vengeful emotion sanctioned the US government’s razing of an innocent Middle East nation; one that had nothing whatever to do with the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon

Genuine diplomacy, an ability to care about and comprehend the other’s viewpoint and by so doing reach an amicable arrangement, was what Jesus of Nazareth meant when he commanded his followers to, “Turn the other cheek.”

Wikileaks website owner, Julian Assange, appears the latest victim of vengeful reaction, but whether or not the accusations of rape have any basis in truth, or, more likely, are an undercover attempt to silence Assange, the apparent reactions of certain high-profile, right-wing, politicians to the latest Wikileaks revelations are not what they seem. They are, in fact, carefully considered, cognitive, responses designed to appear reactive.

Newt Gingrich, (himself hardly ‘without sin’), has called for the hunting down and execution of Assange, as has Sarah Palin, Rick Santorum, and “Christian” Pastor Mike Huckabee.[1] [2]

While initially this may appear reaction rather than response, it must be remembered that all four are politicians with an eye to the presidency in 2012. Their aim is to secure support from voters. Projecting such, apparently, reactive opinions into the public arena is no more than a deliberate attempt to stir up the same nationalistic, combative, fervor that prevailed after 9/11.

Strangely, all these high-profile individuals publicize themselves as ardent followers of that same Jesus of Nazareth whose teachings advocated ‘turning the other cheek’. However, that is merely another result of their own cognitive responses. In a nation that salves its conscience by the advocacy of a decidedly warped form of Christianity, no politician will make career progress by declaring himself, or herself, other than a fervent member of that faith.

The aim of all four politicals is to head a national blood-lust against Assange that will create for them mythical leadership qualities capable of propelling one of them into the White House. Personal gain is the ultimate reward, rather than any concern for national security.

Meanwhile, Mr & Mrs John Doe have yet to prove whether their Christianity is as warped as that of their leaders, or indeed, if their brains are more evolved than that of a domestic pet dog.

[1] “Gingrich: Assange an ‘enemy combatant’ but fault is Obama’s” RawStory, December 5th 2010

[2] “Palin: Assange should be hunted like a terrorist” The First Post, December 1st 2010

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