By Alan Caruba
This appeared here and I wish to thank Alan for allowing me to publish his work. RK
On the conservative side of
the political spectrum, we frequently refer to liberals as “low information
voters”, a nice way of saying they are stupid. From their point of view,
however, we are the stupid ones. And not merely stupid, but evil.
The divide between
conservatives and liberals can be seen in the outcomes of the many polls and
surveys that are announced on a daily basis. The numbers are depressingly the
same; ranging from 40-40% or 50-50%, depending on how many respond that they
don’t have an opinion. There is, moreover, what I call the “thirty percent
syndrome” of reliable liberal responses no matter what the issue may be. They
are the hard core.
There is, however, a critical
difference between stupidity and ignorance. All of us are ignorant about
something or many things. I surely am. I am in awe of people who can make
things or fix things. I appreciate it when someone demonstrates expertise that
informs me about a topic.
If you Google “Americans +
stupid” you will discover that the subject of whether Americans are stupid
generates a significant number of news items and articles. For example, in late
February, Reuters reported on a speech Secretary of State John Kerry gave to
students when he was visiting Berlin. While discussing America’s virtues, such
as tolerance of other points of view, he said, “The reason is, that’s freedom,
in America you have a right to be stupid.”
Kerry, who I have always
regarded as a dim bulb, inadvertently spoke a truth about the way those
currently in high office, the President, his Cabinet members, and staff regard
Americans. Those who oppose their policies and legislative agenda are “stupid”
and, if the President is to be taken at his word these days, Republicans are
“extremists” and other pejoratives. He is a master of the propaganda technique
of repeating a lie often enough until it becomes “truth.”
I find it depressing to find
that so many of our elected representatives display their ignorance on a daily
basis. It is depressing to know that officials appointed to positions of great
responsibility in our government see it only has an opportunity to impose some
ideology or agenda that is disconnected from science or from any facts that support
their machinations.
Let me say that I have long
regarded Barack Obama as stupid. His incompetence manifests itself daily. He
cannot speak without the assistance of a Tele-Prompter. He has zero experience with
the way people make a living or run a business. He has zero experience
regarding military affairs and appears to have no knowledge of history. His
lack of knowledge about economics has left the nation with the highest debt and
deficit in its history, and millions unemployed.
Obama is currently
campaigning to make the low information voters believe that Republicans in
Congress want to “shut down the government” and this is patently untrue.
Speaker of the House, John Boehner, now daily repeats that Republicans in the
House do not want to shut down the government, but are addressing whether to
defund Obamacare. There’s a difference, but Obama and his minions will repeat
and repeat and repeat the lie. In truth, most Republican leaders in Congress
know that defunding is a fool’s dream.
The single greatest example
of stupidity in America today is the Affordable Care Act—Obamacare—a law that
is increasing unemployment, forcing others into part-time, unemployment, and
denying physicians the right to practice medicine while stripping patients of
their privacy, and will ultimately deny care to some judged ineligible due to
age or a previous condition.
On September 17, Jonathan
Jacobs, the director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics and chairman
of the Department of Philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was
published in The Wall Street Journal. “As Education
Declines, So Does Civic Culture.”
Noting the “laments from
graduates” that emerge with student loan debt and “wondering if their studies
have prepared them for jobs and careers” Jacobs expressed the opinion that “A
less familiar but even more troubling problem is that their education did not
prepare them for responsible civic life.”
That is a very nice way of
saying that, by the time many reach college, they are poorly prepared for that
level of “higher” education and too often pick up a diploma because colleges
and universities these days are frequently just giant sausage factories that
exist to process students through while squeezing every dollar out of them. The
problem begins, however, in kindergarten with a thoroughly dumbed-down
educational system.
Jacobs acknowledges this
saying, “The trouble begins before college. Large numbers of high school
students have faced so few challenges and demands that they are badly
unprepared for college.”
“Even after three or four
years of undergraduate education, many students,” said Jacobs, “still cannot
recognize reasoning when they encounter it.”
Reasoning is a cognitive
function that employs facts and analysis. Much of what passes for political discourse
from the White House and Democratic politicians these days is based on emotion
no matter what the issue may be; whether it is gun control or invading Syria.
Conservatives are denigrated
for actually pointing to the Constitution and suggesting that what is being
proposed is forbidden by it. If, however, the intended audience has never read
the Constitution and has a warped or inadequate understanding of American
history, that kind of demagoguery works.
“A great many graduating
students have little idea of what genuine intellectual exploration involves,”
said Jacobs. They have passed through all phases of the educational system
lacking the capacity to think through, not just the issues of the day, but have
failed to acquire the most basic skills. He noted that employers frequently
discover that “many college graduates can barely construct a coherent paragraph
and many have precious little knowledge of the world—the natural world, the
social world, the historical world, or the cultural world.”
These college graduates are
often the sons and daughters of a generation of college graduates who likewise
were regurgitated into the world with a comparable lack of knowledge and
skills.
How many times has Jay Leno
gone onto the street to ask people questions about events and personalities,
only to demonstrate how abysmally ignorant they are? This kind of street
theatre is repeated all the time in YouTube videos. A recent one asked people
to sign a petition to have Karl Marx run for office!
“The cost to America of
failing to reverse the trend toward trivializing education will be more than
just economic,” said Jacobs. “It will be reflected in social friction,
coarsened politics, failed and foolish policies, and a steady decline in the
concern to do anything to reverse the rot.”
The late comedian, George
Carlin, once said, “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large
groups.” I thought of that when I heard that Barack Obama had been reelected.
© Alan Caruba, 2013
