By Rich Kozlovich
In one of Thomas Sowell’s Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene he made this comment:
“Upon
learning that the Constitution requires a president to be a natural
born citizen, a college student said: "What makes a natural born citizen
any more qualified than one born by C-section?"
Although this is humorous I have to ask - is anyone really shocked or even surprised at this? Over educated, under smart, misinformed and uninformed is the pattern. Most disturbing is their lack of common knowledge …. you know…. the kind of stuff that was taught in grade school at one time.
Whenever "on the street" interviews are conducted with college students, or the young in general, they fail in the most basic knowledge. Knowledge that supposedly was once considered part of our society's “common knowledge”. Furthermore, their knowledge and understanding of history is abysmal. Even their knowledge of the world’s geography is startlingly deficient. In one Presidential election an interviewer asked young people if Karl Marx would make a good President. Almost no one knew who he was, what he stood for, or that he was dead. Why?
Organized education doesn't teach kids how to
think, they teach them what to think, and that's the latest form of leftist clabber. About ten or fifteen years ago in England they did a survey and found almost all the
kids believe CO2 causes global warming. Yet just under half of
them also thought that Winston Churchill was an astronaut.
Of
course the young have always thought they were the bearers of “new
knowledge” and a “new understanding” that would lead to “better
solutions” to the world’s problems. In spite of the
fact they have little experience in life by which to weigh their
views.
We all go through that brilliantly stupid stage, speaking in a demanding nonsensical patois completely unaware we don’t have a clue. We not only don’t they have the solutions, we don’t even know the right questions at that age. So the real question is: Why are we paying attention to them?
Actually, the answer is simple. In days gone by that didn’t matter so much because the adult population was much larger than the young population and could ignore them, and then gradually absorb them.
It was kind of like the Army. Remember when they used to advertise "The Army Makes Men". Well, actually what they did was keep them under control until they grew up.
But all changed when the baby boomers came on the scene! All of a sudden we had a gigantic explosion of the young and dumb telling the world the way everything should be. This was the population leftists have exploited and continue to exploit. As a result leftist insanity expanded outrageously and powerfully, especially at the university level.
There is a difference between traditional wisdom and conventional wisdom. Traditional wisdom has stood the test of time. Conventional wisdom is merely the latest philosophical flavor of the day and may not last as long as our memory of the last Super Bowl winner.
Unfortunately, the young are quick to
embrace the latest philosophical flavor of the day, and because their
numbers are so large it soon becomes policy, and while waiting for the
test of time to prove out these policies for good or ill, devastation may be, and has been, left in
their wake,
In his book, Economic Facts and Fallacies, Thomas Sowell defined a logical fallacy in this manner:
“Fallacies
are not simply crazy ideas. They are usually both plausible and logical
– but with something missing. Their plausibility gains them political
support. Only after that political support is strong enough to cause
fallacious ideas to become government policies and programs are the
missing of ignored factors likely to lead to “unintended consequences,” a
phrase often heard in the wake of economic or social policy disasters.
Another phrase often heard in the wake of these disasters is, ‘It seemed
like a good idea at the time.” That is why it pays to look deeper into
things that look good on the surface at the moment."
What is the most frightening about this group is that they don’t seem to understand, or care, what tragic impact their policies may inflict on humanity. They seem to think that “all problems” are “due to other people not being as wise or as noble as they are.”
I
wouldn’t mind that so much if they were the ones who had to pay the
penalty for being wrong, but unfortunately it's always others who have to pay
the penalty for their wrong headedness, and that penalty is often
deadly.
That's always a problem when you never have to face the consequences for
your actions: You don’t have to care, you don’t have to suffer, you don’t
have to be responsible or bear the blame for those actions. Especially
when you self-righteously believe you're on the moral high ground, and involved in a grand and noble experiment that will
save the world, with humanity as the guinea pig.
After all, their
intentions are good! Right? Horsepucky! Along
with those who've suffered as a result of their policies, I am really sick and tired
of hearing that. As for those who have died as a result of their
policies - they can’t hear it at all - they're dead, and when you add all the dead from the "good intentions of the leftist monsters of the 20th century and the "good intentions of the environment movement" we easily have over 200 million people who've died from their "good intentions".
Whether it's the Climate Change fraud or this pandemic hysteria, what we absolutely know this: All the evidence we need in order to come to a correct understanding of what's happening right now is available for all to see how wrong they are. Yet we accommodate them, we excuse them and now even worse, we're crawling into bed with them.
The young at least can be excused for their foolish enthusiasm regarding these things simply because they are young. Baby Boomers no longer have that excuse. If we Boomers are no longer among the young and dumb! Where are we now?
This question needs asked and answered.
Are we willing to accept the responsibility for the consequences of these insane leftist policies?
No comments:
Post a Comment