Friday, July 28, 2006
Stupidity Test, Part 1
After all the fuss we made about J. S. Mill and his correlations between stupidity and conservativism, it is only fairly natural for an Old Prof to want to design a test to enable the categorizing of those who are conservatives who aren't stupid people and those who are.
So, beginning today, here comes a series of true/false or multiple-choice questions designed to allow those who care to figure out which of those two categories they belong in:
1. It is possible for a rational, patriotic human being to fully support our troops in Iraq and also hate the war and those who fabricated it.
A. True
B. False
C. What war in Iraq?
If you chose B, then you're in Mill's larger, more regrettable category. Try to do better on the next one.
Answer C was actually intended to weed out the true morons, but, the more I think about, you could have circled it because you chose to ignore everything being said by all the politicians and self-appointed pundits. That's really a pretty good thing. Give yourself half-credit.
More to follow.
So, beginning today, here comes a series of true/false or multiple-choice questions designed to allow those who care to figure out which of those two categories they belong in:
1. It is possible for a rational, patriotic human being to fully support our troops in Iraq and also hate the war and those who fabricated it.
A. True
B. False
C. What war in Iraq?
If you chose B, then you're in Mill's larger, more regrettable category. Try to do better on the next one.
Answer C was actually intended to weed out the true morons, but, the more I think about, you could have circled it because you chose to ignore everything being said by all the politicians and self-appointed pundits. That's really a pretty good thing. Give yourself half-credit.
More to follow.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
You Can Fix Stupid (When It Runs for Office)
These days, I am frequently reminded of the classic observation from renowned economist John Stuart Mill: "While it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that all stupid people are conservative."
Though it is something of an overstatement -- I know some liberals who have done some pretty stupid things as well (mostly in the name of "political correctness") -- Mill's comment does shed a great deal of light on the current American political situation. And offers some hope that the current crop of stupidity will be replaced soon by something a bit brighter.
Inherent in the estimable economist's statement and the current state of political affairs is the recognition that the stupid people have taken control of America's political scene. This has occurred because those conservatives who aren't stupid people have -- being smart as they are -- pretty much abandoned the arena inside the Beltway around D. C. and the halls of the various statehouses of America for more intelligent and productive pursuits.
They have been replaced, of course, by the stupid people who are conservative. That explains how we can, as a country, be in the mess we are currently in. The Barry Goldwaters are gone, and the Rick Santorums and Sam Brownbacks have replaced them. Reasonable, fair debates about political philosophies have been supplanted with babble (and vetoes) about stem cell research (wherein fully realized humans with Alzheimer's, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease have been judged less valuable than a tadpole in a test tube), flag-burning, the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms, creationism (not to be confused with "intelligent design"), gay marriage, and public displays of the Ten Commandments (although at least one of the sponsors of the legislation for same can't recite the Ten by heart).
The hopeful part of all of this is that the stupidity is showing signs of becoming, as it often does, its own downfall. Rick Santorum is getting his clueless butt kicked in Pennsylvania; the super-sanctimonious Ralph Reed has already has his handed to him in Georgia. And the same is happening to his fellow Forrest Gumps (and at least ol' Forrest knew that "stupid is as stupid does") around the country. By this time next year, expect most of them to be gone, replaced by the conservatives and liberals who aren't stupid people.
That should head off the present spiral into the black hole of political stupidity, the drive toward an American theocracy (and something opposite but equally untenable in Middle Eastern countries), and a Mad Max-style foreign policy.
Of course, that won't last forever. There is something contagious about the stupidity within the bounds of the Beltway. It lingers behind like powdered anthrax in the air-circulation system. The people who go in fresh this fall will eventually catch the stupidity bug -- be they conservative or liberal -- and have to be purged, just like the current crop of morons. It's called the American political cycle, and I think even John Stuart Mill would have seen the inevitability of it all.
(For the stupid people smart enough to hire libel lawyers, the above was meant only for satirical purposes and does not seriously mean that any of the actual people truly are stupid, by standard intelligence-testing means.)
Though it is something of an overstatement -- I know some liberals who have done some pretty stupid things as well (mostly in the name of "political correctness") -- Mill's comment does shed a great deal of light on the current American political situation. And offers some hope that the current crop of stupidity will be replaced soon by something a bit brighter.
Inherent in the estimable economist's statement and the current state of political affairs is the recognition that the stupid people have taken control of America's political scene. This has occurred because those conservatives who aren't stupid people have -- being smart as they are -- pretty much abandoned the arena inside the Beltway around D. C. and the halls of the various statehouses of America for more intelligent and productive pursuits.
They have been replaced, of course, by the stupid people who are conservative. That explains how we can, as a country, be in the mess we are currently in. The Barry Goldwaters are gone, and the Rick Santorums and Sam Brownbacks have replaced them. Reasonable, fair debates about political philosophies have been supplanted with babble (and vetoes) about stem cell research (wherein fully realized humans with Alzheimer's, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease have been judged less valuable than a tadpole in a test tube), flag-burning, the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms, creationism (not to be confused with "intelligent design"), gay marriage, and public displays of the Ten Commandments (although at least one of the sponsors of the legislation for same can't recite the Ten by heart).
The hopeful part of all of this is that the stupidity is showing signs of becoming, as it often does, its own downfall. Rick Santorum is getting his clueless butt kicked in Pennsylvania; the super-sanctimonious Ralph Reed has already has his handed to him in Georgia. And the same is happening to his fellow Forrest Gumps (and at least ol' Forrest knew that "stupid is as stupid does") around the country. By this time next year, expect most of them to be gone, replaced by the conservatives and liberals who aren't stupid people.
That should head off the present spiral into the black hole of political stupidity, the drive toward an American theocracy (and something opposite but equally untenable in Middle Eastern countries), and a Mad Max-style foreign policy.
Of course, that won't last forever. There is something contagious about the stupidity within the bounds of the Beltway. It lingers behind like powdered anthrax in the air-circulation system. The people who go in fresh this fall will eventually catch the stupidity bug -- be they conservative or liberal -- and have to be purged, just like the current crop of morons. It's called the American political cycle, and I think even John Stuart Mill would have seen the inevitability of it all.
(For the stupid people smart enough to hire libel lawyers, the above was meant only for satirical purposes and does not seriously mean that any of the actual people truly are stupid, by standard intelligence-testing means.)
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Please Pledge Allegiance and Subscribe Soon
To paraphrase Abe Lincoln, God sure must have loved the ignoramuses, because he made so many of them.
They came out of the woodwork this week to make their semi-annual push to get the Pledge of Allegiance back into America's classrooms. It was thrown out of said classrooms in 2002 by a federal appeals court because its inclusion of the phrase "under God" violates the separation of church and state doctrine. It apparently hasn't dawned on anybody in Washington or anywhere else that, if patriotism is what you really want to restore, it could be done very easily, by removing the words "under God" from the pledge.
But, of course, that isn't what this debate is about. Today's class of new theocrats aren't about to be deterred from their course of infusing their religion (but not anyone else's) into the public sphere. They argue, as House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., did this week, that the pledge (presumably with the "under God" reference) was a vital part of our country's (in other words, his version of this country's) heritage and traditions and nothing short of "what we are about as a country."
He got that last part right, but, ignoramus that he is, not in the way he meant. The heritage and tradition of the Pledge of Allegiance -- and Blunt would know this if he had bothered to check out its history -- has a lot less to do with patriotism and American heritage than, say, the national anthem. And absolutely nothing to do with the entity he/they think of as their Creator.
Unlike "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was inspired by actual redly glaring rockets and bursting bombs, the Pledge of Allegiance was a product of good ol' American commercial enterprise.
For Blunt and those who didn't bother to check, the Pledge of Allegiance was not handed down from on high by the diety of their choice. It was, in fact, created to sell magazines to America's unsuspecting youth. The magazine was The Youth's Companion, and the year was 1892. The occasion was the observance of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' supposed "discovery" of America (an area already inhabited by too many people to be considered a new discovery, except to God-fearing ignoramuses from Europe).
The magazine's associate editor and its circulation manager cooked up the scheme, whose purpose was two-fold -- to celebrate the anniversary in style and, of course, to sell more copies of The Youth's Companion.
The editor, Francis Bellamy, wrote the pledge, which did not include the phrase "under God" in its original version, and the circulation manager, James Upham, promoted the hell out of it, to the point of getting school children around the nation to recite it on October 12, 1892. It worked like a charm and sold lots of magazines.
It would take another fifty-three years before the pledge was officially adopted through an act of Congress, and nine more years before another act of Congress added its two most trouble-making words, "under God." No stone tablets were handed down to anybody standing atop an ancient mountain, and no observances of patriotic inspiration were made from Fort McHenry.
The Pledge of Allegiance was inspired not by the Almighty on high, but by the truly American pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. So please spare us all the bleating about how the pledge represents America's best heritages and traditions and "what we are about as a country." We don't want to be reminded of that anymore and feel even more shame over it.
In fact, let's rewrite the pledge, a perfectly acceptable action when it comes to advertising copy, to read more accurately: "I pledge allegiance to the private enterprises of the United States of America, and the Profit Motive for which they stand, one avarice, under Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch, tax-deductible, with liberty and justice for all who can pay the interest rates."
Long may it wave -- and sell goods and services. And ponder where we'd be if the editors of a kids' magazine back in 1892 had decided it would have been a better Columbus Day promotion to have everyone take their American flags down to the courthouse squares of the land and set them on fire in celebration of our heritage and tradition. Some enterprising souls would have found a way to make some hay that day, selling boxes of matches. That's the American way I'm talking about.
They came out of the woodwork this week to make their semi-annual push to get the Pledge of Allegiance back into America's classrooms. It was thrown out of said classrooms in 2002 by a federal appeals court because its inclusion of the phrase "under God" violates the separation of church and state doctrine. It apparently hasn't dawned on anybody in Washington or anywhere else that, if patriotism is what you really want to restore, it could be done very easily, by removing the words "under God" from the pledge.
But, of course, that isn't what this debate is about. Today's class of new theocrats aren't about to be deterred from their course of infusing their religion (but not anyone else's) into the public sphere. They argue, as House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., did this week, that the pledge (presumably with the "under God" reference) was a vital part of our country's (in other words, his version of this country's) heritage and traditions and nothing short of "what we are about as a country."
He got that last part right, but, ignoramus that he is, not in the way he meant. The heritage and tradition of the Pledge of Allegiance -- and Blunt would know this if he had bothered to check out its history -- has a lot less to do with patriotism and American heritage than, say, the national anthem. And absolutely nothing to do with the entity he/they think of as their Creator.
Unlike "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was inspired by actual redly glaring rockets and bursting bombs, the Pledge of Allegiance was a product of good ol' American commercial enterprise.
For Blunt and those who didn't bother to check, the Pledge of Allegiance was not handed down from on high by the diety of their choice. It was, in fact, created to sell magazines to America's unsuspecting youth. The magazine was The Youth's Companion, and the year was 1892. The occasion was the observance of the 400th anniversary of Columbus' supposed "discovery" of America (an area already inhabited by too many people to be considered a new discovery, except to God-fearing ignoramuses from Europe).
The magazine's associate editor and its circulation manager cooked up the scheme, whose purpose was two-fold -- to celebrate the anniversary in style and, of course, to sell more copies of The Youth's Companion.
The editor, Francis Bellamy, wrote the pledge, which did not include the phrase "under God" in its original version, and the circulation manager, James Upham, promoted the hell out of it, to the point of getting school children around the nation to recite it on October 12, 1892. It worked like a charm and sold lots of magazines.
It would take another fifty-three years before the pledge was officially adopted through an act of Congress, and nine more years before another act of Congress added its two most trouble-making words, "under God." No stone tablets were handed down to anybody standing atop an ancient mountain, and no observances of patriotic inspiration were made from Fort McHenry.
The Pledge of Allegiance was inspired not by the Almighty on high, but by the truly American pursuit of the Almighty Dollar. So please spare us all the bleating about how the pledge represents America's best heritages and traditions and "what we are about as a country." We don't want to be reminded of that anymore and feel even more shame over it.
In fact, let's rewrite the pledge, a perfectly acceptable action when it comes to advertising copy, to read more accurately: "I pledge allegiance to the private enterprises of the United States of America, and the Profit Motive for which they stand, one avarice, under Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch, tax-deductible, with liberty and justice for all who can pay the interest rates."
Long may it wave -- and sell goods and services. And ponder where we'd be if the editors of a kids' magazine back in 1892 had decided it would have been a better Columbus Day promotion to have everyone take their American flags down to the courthouse squares of the land and set them on fire in celebration of our heritage and tradition. Some enterprising souls would have found a way to make some hay that day, selling boxes of matches. That's the American way I'm talking about.
