We’ve become a nation beholden to idiots and it’s about time we do something about it. America has a long and cherished history of anti-intellectualism. Sarah Palin’s exhortation to ‘Mama Grizzlies’ is not all that different from Davey Crockett’s folksy speeches made on the floor of Congress when he was a U.S. Representative. And both left office to pursue book deals.
The similarity ends there, however. Where Crockett’s earthy likability worked in the service of liberty and personal justice for minorities (he supported squatters rights, opposed Indian removal policies), our new national class of Dumb-Dumbs are pushing an incendiary nativism that has to be stopped. They represent a direct threat to democracy, security and personal freedom. In the past year, it’s become clear that the choice is not between left and right, but stupidity and knowledge. It’s time to decide which side you’re on.
Consider these late developments: The national conversation at the moment is over whether a church has a right to worship where it wants to worship. There’s semi-serious talk about repealing the 14th Amendment. The Republican Senate candidate in Nevada thinks the Department of Education should be abolished and has suggested that voters should take up arms if they don’t get the results they like.
What’s most damning is not that crazy people are saying crazy things, but that intelligent people are taking them seriously. There will always be whack-jobs who will think that taking away religious freedom or the right to vote is a good idea. You will always be able to find some lizard hiding under a rock who advocates the wholesale destruction of the government by revolution. The cost of doing business in a democracy that values plurality and individual freedom is that the village idiot can say whatever he or she likes.
If you want to be ignorant, go ahead. If you want to believe that Barack Obama is a Kenyan Muslim socialist hellbent on forcing you into a gay marriage with a federally-funded deathbot, go for it! But don’t expect me to take you seriously.
Yet, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Both in the media and in the halls of power, the inmates, if not running the asylum, are setting the agenda. John Adams said that “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people” and yet those charged with informing the public have failed.
Never mind that the idea of a politician weighing in on where a church should go is anathema to the very reason for our country’s existence. Never mind that those who oppose gay marriage can offer up no reason for their opposition other than bigotry. Never mind that a civil war was fought to secure the rights guaranteed in the 14th Amendment. Truth is being tossed aside for ratings and the end result is a slow legitimization of the idiotic.
The reason for this is cowardice. Our society has come to believe that any viewpoint is a legitimate viewpoint, so long as there’s someone out there to espouse it. While this might make for good jokes on The Colbert Report, it’s actually a greater threat to America than terrorism or drugs or any of the other causes we have decided to ‘declare war’ on. Which is why I am suggesting that America ought to collectively declare war on stupidity. If we are to wage an ideological battle against a concept, let it be against Stupidity.
The right to hold an opinion carries with it the responsibility to defend it. If you believe Obama was born in Kenya, prove it. If you can’t, you and your defenseless opinion don’t deserve a place in the national discourse. Just as we don’t invite the KKK to debate whether blacks and whites should be married, why should we give homophobes a platform to promote a fundamentally and empirically indefensible viewpoint? When Sharon Angle suggests the violent overthrow of the government, someone ought to speak up, not in a tone of ironic snickering, but in indignant rage.
In dialing back his comments on the Cordoba House, in his refusal to comment on gay marriage, in his failure to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Obama has failed to ‘uphold and defend’ the Constitution. In framing the debate over these issues in terms of how it will affect the November elections, the press has failed in its duty to inform the people. You can’t blame the ignorant for their ignorance, but we ought to condemn those who know better when they keep quiet simply because it is politically expedient or profitable to do so.
Weirdly, my new hero is Ted Olson, George W.’s Solicitor General who not only successfully argued that Prop. 8 was unconstitutional, but also told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, on the issue of the ‘Ground Zero mosque’:
“We don’t want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith. And I don’t think it should be a political issue. It shouldn’t be a Republican or Democratic issue, either.”
Watch the clip here:
It’s probably worth noting that Olson lost his wife on 9/11. There are important debates to be had in this country. We have enormous challenges facing us, not only now, but in the near future. The choice we must make is a stark one: Do we ignore the dangers by indulging the ignorant fear-mongers or do we come to the defense of the fundamental rights and institutions that have made this country not only successful, but a model for the rest of the world as we move into a new and challenging century?
How we answer that question in the next few years will decide the fate of this country– and the world — for a long time to come.
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Excellent job with this. Actually brought tears to my eyes and I posted it twice to my Twitter/Facebook for emphasis.
When I voted for Obama in the VA primary and again in the general election, I was filled with relief and hope upon his victory, hope that we could move beyond the immaturity, insensitivity and general stupidity that permeated the Bush years and threatened the country (and therefore the world). Yet I have seen the rhetoric dip lower and lower since. It is astonishing and we have to rise up with “indignant rage” as you put it.
Get the word out!
Democracy only works with a reasonably-educated informed populace. It is clear we don’t have that any more. It is time to modify the Constitution to disenfranchise any current citizens who cannot pass the citizenship exam we give to immigrants. Better yet, just deport them if they can’t pass, since they’re obviously not Real Americans[tm].
“The cost of doing business in a democracy that values plurality and individual freedom is that the village idiot can say whatever he or she likes.”
That’s the beach calling the water khaki. But I whole heartedly support your right to be the village idiot.
Wow, Japhy, phenomenal blog. Well written and so right on. I’ve been seeing people post the most hideous comments on FB about how “‘proven terrorists’ are building a terrorist-farm mosque on Ground Zero” and it’s so frustrating. And you can’t talk them out of it no matter how irrational they may realize they are.
My deathbot and I are actually quite happy together and plan to holiday in Kenya with the Obama’s.
Idiocracy.
See it. It’s not a comedy. It’s a prophecy.
@Brian: it doesn’t count as a prophecy if it’s already happening.
We’ve had one candidate for governor of Alabama ACCUSE the other of believing in evolution, as apparently that’s a no-go in Crackerstan.
We’ve had RW pundits whining about how the President’s speech about BP was “too hard to understand” because it addressed the supposedly adult citizens of the country at a 10th grade level. Is it really that far of a jump to discrediting a speaker with “he talks like a fag”?
Do I need to draw the parallel between the folks attacking the stimulus for not working instantly and the whole “stop watering the plants with Brawndo” plot arc?
While I agree with most of the author’s viewpoints on the issues at hand (freedom of religion, etc.) I find the whole point of this article to be disturbing. It’s too easy to denigrate one’s opponent through the use of ad hominem attacks, like calling him “stupid”. Harder and more time consuming to enumerate the many ways in which his argument (not him) lacks logic and sense.
People have a legitimate right to be a angry at the building of a mosque near the WTC. Some are expressing that anger without calling for an outright ban against the right to build it. Many are advancing the argument that they have the right to build, but should they? In this they’re appealing to Muslim sensibilities, and not appealing to the government to step in. These people protesting are not anti-freedom, nor are they stupid. They’re hurting.
WOLFSHADE! STOP lying. They don’t wish to build a mosque near ground zero (2 blocks away)… it is a Muslim cultural center! Huge, huge difference. You obviously did not read the whole story, which talks about being uninformed about your opinions. Again, get your facts straight before you want to become part of the discourse.
@wolfshades: It doesn’t matter one iota whether they “should” have the right to build there or not; even if 90% of the country believes they shouldn’t, that doesn’t make one tiny bit of difference. The only thing that matters is what the LAW says.
Now, people could argue all day long whether the text of the First Amendment protects this building or not, but nowhere does the question of “should they have the right to build?” come into play.
@wolfshades: People have a legitimate right to be a angry at the building of a mosque near the WTC.
And here we have the problem.
Yes, people have a “right to be angry.” They do not have a right to translate the anger into public policy. I have a right to be angry that someone shot a bullet through my window; I don’t have a right to turn that anger into a blanket prohibition against all firearms.
If you don’t want Park 51 to open, make a public policy argument against it. The fact that people are upset is not a public policy argument.
Good stuff, but I think he’s wrong when he says ” Our society has come to believe that any viewpoint is a legitimate viewpoint, so long as there’s someone out there to espouse it.” There are lots of viewpoints, stupid and non-stupid, that are considered out of bounds. Try suggesting that the Bush administration might have deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to happen, or that we should nationalize all the banks and hospitals.
The particular kind of stupidity advocated by tea-baggers and such is treated as legitimate because it’s useful to certain people who are out to make a buck off them.
(Sorry, “he” -> “you” in my above comment.)
You write, “[T]he choice is not between left and right, but stupidity and knowledge. It’s time to decide which side you’re on.” Full disclosure: I’m with Stupid.
Despite America’s protections guaranteeing freedoms, we must disabuse you of of your belief that there are no legal avenues for holding up the building of a mosque in New York*. We the Stupid do not violate the establishment clause (free exercise of religion) or the first amendment (freedom of assembly) when we lobby city administrators to screen applicants for building permits for terrorist-linked funding sources. As long as zoning law allows such screening, we have the right to lobby for it.
The only question that the Stupid need to consider is whether or not a shift in American culture away from tolerance fosters radical Islam. American muslims are far less likely to be radical than European muslims (http://www.cfr.org/publication/8218/europes_angry_muslims.html). Perhaps this is not merely because of our legal guarantees of religious freedom. Perhaps Muslims who come to America become less radical when they find that liberal *and stupid* Americans forbear from acting on the basis of legal avenues for discrimination.
*if you this is your belief
It does not surprise me at all that the new outlet that Mr. Grant watches and chooses to show a clip of is MSNBC. He also should realize that stupidity is greatly dependent on our points of view. Also, he argues the constitutionality of t…he 1st and 14th amendments, ( in which I totally agree ), but does not broach the subject of how the health care bill is unconstitutional. He would probably come back with the commerce clause, but that does not work when Obama and team said that the ” fine ” would not be a tax and now argue that it is a tax. It seems to me that ” all-knowing ” liberals like to turn the other cheek when it suits their agenda……………
How it will *affect* the November elections.
Left out of much of the conversation about the idiocracy that America has become is the past thirty years of systematic defunding of public schools across the country. An uneducated populace is far easier to manipulate with emotionalism and outright lies. I don’t believe it’s an accident that our public school system has declined so greatly, especially when I see the very lucrative results.
@ Richard
There’s no talking to someone like you. Do you see how you slid the conversation over to another topic. It’s a nice tactic to avoid defending your stance. And then you just set up a strawman to generalize about.
You know why? Because you cannot defend intolerance. It is unAmerican.
Republicans are once again playing on the level of emotions (fears mostly) and not brains. The whole mama grizzly thing taps into our most primitive instinct: it’s either me and my brood or you. There is no reasoning with people when their survival instinct has been turned on and whipped into a frenzy. The news coverage of the misc. protests/gatherings always reminds me of the story “The Lottery”.
We need this right now. I personally needed to read what you said here right now. Thank you.
Oh I so love this ……..I am amazed and gobsmacked at the stupidity of our nation. When did we not only become stupid we revel in our stupidity..? maybe it is contagious..sigh*
I would expect a writer to use better words, but then I would expect the same of our President.
So “America needs a War on Stupid?” Really? In the words of Ron White, “You can’t fix stupid.” Perhaps the author’s call for a “war on stupid” indicates some lack of understanding.
One hopes the author is equally against the stupidities of the left as of the right.
Oh, my, yes, they exist. I am myself mostly “liberal” regarding social issues—although I also oppose gun control on civil-liberties grounds—but I get riled up just as much when I see some pie-in-the-sky vapid crunchy New Age goodness as I do when I see dour closed-minded fire-and-brimstone frowny-face pietism. If nothing else, that vapidity makes it more difficult to present and maintain an aura of reasoned respectability.
The extremes drown out the moderates who might be willing to seek compromise, because it’s easier for the parties to appeal to those elements. While most folks have other things to do, the extremists on both sides tend to follow their obsessions: They’re more willing to open their wallets for contributions, they’re more willing to volunteer time and effort. Mix in the Baby Boomers’ exaltation of the self over the community (“Don’t think, just feel”; “no compromise!”; “What—isn’t poor impulse control normal?”) and the result is just what we see today; a sliding of political dialog into the gutter.
Of course, the Web contributes as well. It’s only human nature to avoid the unpleasant—including viewpoints with which one disagrees—and it’s easy to screen out such things in the course of surfing. Voilà! The echo-chamber effect.
@Rainier Wolfcastle : The US should educate first it’s people before turning against immigrants, this article is written exactly to showcase the unbelievable level of stupidity this nation sunk to.
DB, I’d like to see some examples of “pie-in-the-sky vapid crunchy New Age goodness” that come anywhere close to the rightwingnut garbage infesting the public discourse. What can you cite that comes anywhere close to death panels, the President is a secret Muslim, environmentalists are to blame for the BP Gulf disaster, government should get off the backs of big business and into the bedrooms and religious faiths of private citizens, Glenn Beck and his Nazi fixation, Newt Gingrich and his stream-of-consciousiness idiocy, the Republican party controlled by un-elected personalities like Palin, Limbaugh, and Beck, Dr. Laura whining about her free speech rights are infringed because people disagree with her, and on and on…come on, just one example.
Forgot to say great article Mr. Grant, thank you. Truly the idiocracy is on the rise.
Is it at all ironic that there’s an ad by radically right-wing Newsmax, spreaders of all things stupid, advocating to “Stop Obama Care” right next to this article?
Drokhole, It may seem ironic, but it’s actually quite understandable. Both the article and most of the posters are regurgitating so many of the cliche right-wing talking-points as straw-men. Google is simply doing what they make the big bucks to do, namely target those ads to the keywords being generated. Perhaps if people could start actually writing/posting something remotely resembling an original thought, the ads would turn to something less targetable.
What happened to old school values and idealism? Simple is better. America needs to back up to the era in time when family values, hard work, and communities mattered. Money, budgets, taxes, and the government still existed in those days – but they did not run or ruin anyone’s lives. Not like they are now. Back to the basics people. It’s common sense.
Agreed with Paul above who quoted “you can’t fix stupid.” What you can fix is ignorance, through education. So how about a push to end ignorance?
I don’t really like the misappropriation of using the word “war” to mean something other than large-scale mass-murder and destruction.
Mosque or Muslim Cultural Center – whatever. It amounts to the same thing doesn’t it? A monument to Islam.
Note that I did NOT say (nor do I believe) that the building of it should be outlawed. In fact, quite the opposite. The government has no business saying who is going to build what religious building where they want.
The appeal here – for the sake of those who lost loved ones at the WTC – is directly to Muslims. NOT to the government. If moderate Muslims want to be taken seriously, they will understand the rage and sorrow that so many feel. Just like Muslims wonder why we don’t understand their rage when we publish cartoons about Mohammed.
Wolfshades, there are no real, legitimate reasons for raising all this fuss over the Cordoba Center. It’s hatemongering for dollars, and every last gullible dope who is buying into it should be ashamed. The most cynical form of political fundraising, and keeping a gaggle of wingnuts wealthy and comfortable. Instead of making nice livings spreading hate and fear, Palin, Limbaugh, Beck, and their ilk should be sweeping floors at Wal-Mart. At least that would be useful. It wouldn’t even be an issue if the professional demagogues hadn’t made it one.
Erin, why just point to the unelected media guys? What about the elected (or seeking-to-be-elected Democrats who are spouting about the building of this center? Five congressional New York Democrats (most likely pandering to the 54% majority of their constituents against this issue) have voiced opposition to it. Ignorance runs deep, and wide. Like it or not, you are simply taking the bait. The entire thing is a non-issue.
Great post. I agree wholheartedly. One is allowed to have opinions, but one had better be prepared to defend them in a coherent argument.
I liked this segment:
“Consider these late developments: The national conversation at the moment is over whether a church has a right to worship where it wants to worship. There’s semi-serious talk about repealing the 14th Amendment. The Republican Senate candidate in Nevada thinks the Department of Education should be abolished and has suggested that voters should take up arms if they don’t get the results they like.”
Allow me to add: a couple of days after this blog post appeared, most major media sources for some reason thought it necessary to post the results of a poll on whether or not Obama is secretly a member of a religion assigned to him by his detractors. In California, there are apparently many people that believe that America is and always has been a “majority rule” country, with the pesky third branch of government keeping it in check a “liberal” creation outside the Constitution. And any time there is a snowstorm anywhere in the country, media pundits have a field day mocking the consensus of the entire global climate science community.
Every once in a while I toy with the notion that a literacy/competency test should be mandatory before allowing anyone into the voting booth. “Thinkers” who can’t create coherent sentences or spell correctly on their placards have no place in my universe. I didn’t read this as you condemning those who disagree with you as being stupid — you’re just pointing out what’s been obvious since the beginning of free speech here in the USofA – it’s harder to love Americans than it is to love America.
a/b
Wow. I don’t even remember how I ended up here, but I’ll be back.
Thank you. I agree on all points, but especially this: “What’s most damning is not that crazy people are saying crazy things, but that intelligent people are taking them seriously.”
I mean, really, when did we decide that the idiots who dwell on the fringes should get equal time in the mainstream media? It’s unconscionable.
And yes, I actually know when, but that doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.
This is the problem though. People who think they’re smarter than everyone else think they have the right to tell everyone what to do. That doesn’t sound like democracy, and it sounds like the death of liberty to me.
I am taking a Political Theory class and on one of our recent quizzes the question was “What are some of the threats to our democracy?” My answer was: stupidity. Now I managed an entire paragraph, but it is true.
Unfortunately, I do believe our forefathers foresaw this occurance and that is why the only direct vote was to the House of Representatives and state legislators. Because stupid runs amok!
Excellant post!
Speaking of Dumb-dumbs…the author displays an incredible ignorance himself (wink, wink), or a mental block, incapable of processing history and discerning fact and fiction.
I can only surmise from his diatribe that he is an idiologue (wink, wink).
America is a very stupid country. Most people here can’t seem to figure out that it doesn’t matter who you vote for or IF you vote because all the choices are completely controlled by the billionaires that pull the strings on both hardly dissimilar parties. Where’s the party for the average non-wealthy American? I hear crickets chirping. Where’s the party that will give us single payer health care? End the wars for energy resource dominance? Give basic civil rights to gay folks? Legalize whatever adults want to smoke in the privacy of their own homes? Turn the C.I.A. into strictly an intelligence analyzing organ instead of maintaining it as a covert ops terrorist group? Give us a minimum wage that actually corresponds to the cost of living instead of being an insult to every working person? Give employees the right to easily unionize with the E.F.C.A.? Neither party, or I should say more accurately neither nearly-identical wing of the Big Business Billionaires’ Party, is willing to do any of this. Voting in this country is such a waste of time and so artificial that it makes professional wrestling look authentic.
When you can’t argue with facts you just call everyone stupid. Sad really…. No talk of the fiscal insanity of the Obama administration, no talk of how social security costs are going to rise 200% in the next ten years, the 800 billion dollars the fed just printed, and a complete the complete disregard of actual democracy. You can’t handle the fact that the country is beginning to realize there is no “free lunch” and our nation is headed down the road to complete economic collapse. The Republicans aren’t the answer but they are sure better than the democrats who can’t seem to realize that Europe already went down this road and is collapsing before our very eyes. Debt that is 100% + of GDP is not sustainable. You talk too much of Social Issues and not about the economic challenge we face which is what the people are really interested in not pot and gay marriage.
This weblog is simply superb, I assumed I do know a good deal, but I’m so mistaken, like the previous saying the much more you already know, the added you come across out how little you know. Thanks for the info.
I was beginning to think that America’s outhouse rats were apparent to only me and a few others. It is good to know that I am not an elitist. Maybe a bleeding heart liberal, but never an elitist.
Thanks for your good work
J.Butler
All countries have their share of what I like to call the back room idiot. However, one of the problems that I believe is particularly relevant to America is its isolationism. I don’t mean this in the political sense. I mean it in the literal sense. America is a big country with adequate resources, it could indeed survive without world trade if required to do so. Furthermore, a great many people live in relatively small townships far apart. Equally a large number of people are disinterested in their nearest neighbour or their political opinions. This can lead to a narrow polarization of viewpoint that, speaking as an Englishman, can sometimes seem a little naive when voiced, or if you wanted to be particularly cruel, perhaps a shade silly. When a contender for the Republican party can stand up and say ‘ There are three things we must get rid of in this country’ then cheerfully admit after quoting two of them that ‘ I’ve just forgotten what the other one was for the moment’ then of course the world laughs. Obviously Americans are not all stupid, to say so is rather like the current trend of calling all Baby Boomers parasites, but it would be wrong to brush over the fact that some Americans should speak only after considerable thought.
David Harris??? DR.???
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