http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07133/785076-148.stm

We all struggle mightily to prove to ourselves and others that whatever we do is the right thing to have done, even -- or most especially -- when it is not.

This team of social psychologists tackles "the inner workings of self-justification," the mental gymnastics that allow us to bemoan the mote in our brother's eye while remaining blissfully unaware of the beam in our own.

Their prose is lively, their research is admirable, and their examples of our arrogant follies are entertaining and instructive.

Two concepts are central to their study:

Cognitive dissonance: "The hard-wired psychological mechanism that creates self-justification and protects our certainties, self-esteem and tribal affiliations."

Pyramid of choice: When we first deal with a mistake, we are at the top of the pyramid. As we create ever more elaborate fictions that absolve us and restore our sense of self-worth and thereby remove the dissonance, we descend step by step to the base.

The authors follow the trail of self-justification through the areas of family, memory, therapy, law, prejudice and conflict, but some of the juiciest examples come from politics. Think most recently of U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, echoing Ronald Reagan when he used the very words of this book's title -- "mistakes were made." (Politicians are especially fond of the passive voice.)

What's going on is not lying, exactly, except insofar as it is lying to oneself. As Aldous Huxley said, "There is probably no such thing as a conscious hypocrite."

The Fox News "parody" show The 1/2 Hour Comedy show running the attack commericials accusing the ACLU of making America "safe" for the hate speech of the KKK?

Funny how a Fox News conservative can see there's something wrong with Muslims using hate speech laws to persecute people but they can't see what's wrong with attacking the ACLU for defending free speech.

"Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being "pushed to an extreme;" not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case." - Mill

"Let us suppose, therefore, that the government is entirely at one with the people, and never thinks of exerting any power of coercion unless in agreement with what it conceives to be their voice. But I deny the right of the people to exercise such coercion, either by themselves or by their government. The power itself is illegitimate. The best government has no more title to it than the worst. It is as noxious, or more noxious, when exerted in accordance with public opinion, than when in opposition to it. If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error" - Mill, On Liberty

Can we forward the commission copies of On Liberty by John Stuart Mill?

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/01/0081346

To break this cycle will require breaking the stranglehold money has on politics.

Here's a classic in dirty, rotten, unethical advertising

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NPKxhfFQMs

Psychologists call that "priming" - and it is clearly unethical.

on a scale of ethics, a subliminal cross would be worse than an overt one

You're right about the differing reactions.

But I think its naive to think that the people that came up with the Huckabee ad did not know what they were doing when that bookshelf was lighted so as to form a cross. Even if it had been unintentionally shot that way, it would have come up in testing.

Background cues like that can subliminally affect people's perceptions. There's ample research demonstrating that.

The McCain ad is straight up pandering to the Religious Right, which given McCain's past would seem highly disengenuous. Huck's seems more sly, but at least genuine.

Either way, it's sad to see the Republican Party prisoner to the Religious Right.