Mental Bankruptcy

Ex police officer arrested
for offering teenage girls
$1000 to suck their toes.

I can’t stand it anymore. I’m coming out of the closet. No, I’m not gay. I’m a (sort of) intellectual. I have advanced degrees, a Master’s and a Ph.D. When I moved here to North Idaho I had retired from UCLA. I did not emphasize or even make public that I had a Ph.D. I did not use that designation when I wrote letters to the editor or in any other context. I was quite content to just be Mister. I knew this was a very conservative community and I did not want to be identified as “a pointy headed intellectual.” I tried very hard not to come across as too knowledgeable, too patronizing, or too elitist, or whatever. But after almost twenty years I cannot take it any longer. The vast majority of the American populace is ignorant almost beyond belief and to the point of national disgrace. According to a Gallup poll a mere 39% of Americans believe in the theory of evolution. Another 25% do not believe in it, and some 36% have no opinion. This is disgraceful. There is no other word for it. What this means is that our near economic bankruptcy is exceeded by our mental or intellectual bankruptcy, and in the long run this latter bankruptcy is going to be far more harmful than the former. The fact that more than 60% of our people either do not believe in evolution or have no opinion, in the context of American culture at this moment in history, indicates that this ignorance not only exists, it is deliberate. All the materials are readily available to any American who can read and write (and think at almost any level) to demonstrate the overwhelming evidence for the theory of evolution. To make no attempt to understand this is inexcusable, but it is not the only evidence for mental bankruptcy. Consider the millions of citizens who apparently get their only information from Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Coulter, and the mass of ultra-conservative talk show hosts that virtually monopolize the airwaves. These so-called “ditto-heads” obviously make no attempt to learn anything, contenting themselves to just repeat what these stupid fools tell them day after day, even though the evidence is plain that they are a bunch of ignorant liars that are willing to say anything for money and notoriety. Look at the adulation of Sarah Palin, herself not much more than an ignorant hillbilly. And Joe the Plumber, who is not Joe, not a plumber, and by no stretch of the imagination a well-informed or thoughtful spokesman for the Republican Party (which apparently he now is). And we have Congresspersons we have elected to office who are themselves so ignorant they pontificate on subjects they obviously know little or nothing about. FDR caused the depression, for example. Or even worse, our ex-President who was a complete know-nothing and could barely speak the English language (and seemed to be proud of it). This ethos of anti-intellectualism is largely to blame for all of our current ills. We have shortchanged our educational system for years, mocked our intellectuals, debased our airwaves and television, devalued the pursuit of knowledge, starved our scientists, abandoned our basic Constitutional values, and placed our priorities on the most mundane of human pursuits like shopping, sporting events, and short term gains. Our greed and short-sightedness have virtually destroyed our environment and short-changed our children, and even our childrens’ children. This is the behavior of a race of mental midgets, pointy headed Neanderthals, thoughtless morons, slothful egocentric pea-brains, creatures unable and unwilling to think past tomorrow, both irresponsible and foolish. If this is the majority that is going to pick our leaders we will surely be doomed.

Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University and the Harvard Law School where he trained in Constitutional Law. That is something to be proud of, not something to be suspicious about. Comparing Obama to Sarah Palin on the basis of experience and qualifications was simply laughable, but some did this as though it was a meaningful exercise. It was pathetic. Electing Bush with failure written all over him, because people thought they’d like to have a beer with him, was pathetic. The Bush/Cheney administration was pathetic. They were re-elected. That was pathetic. That the majority of citizens in the U.S., as presently educated and informed, might determine our leadership in the future is frightening and fraught with peril for our nation. For a democracy to continue and to flourish it demands an educated and informed citizenry. We are failing, failing badly.

LKBIQ:
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. -- James Branch Cabell

TILT:
The dome of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello home contained a hidden billiard room. Billiards was illegal in Virginia at that time.