We are a profoundly ignorant. People don’t know anything about their own religions. We know little of our own history, let alone our history in context with the rest of the world. We worship sports heroes who torture dogs, but we point at scientists and laugh. A profoundly messed-up woman like Christine O’Donnell can run on a platform of “See? I can’t manage my finances either. I’m you.” We had eight years of a dry drunk as president because people thought he was the guy they’d want to have a beer with — as if that were ever going to happen. Now there are people who would vote to give the nuclear codes to an aging high school mean girl because they’d like to fuck her — as if that’s ever going to happen. Smart people are regarded with scorn as “elites.” Ignorance is regarded as a virtue. This is how an empire dies. And we are going to be around to see it.
It seems that we’re a nation that collectively managed to sleep through government/civics classes in high school. Not only do Americans lack the intellectual agility to evaluate complex issues, we’ve lost (if we ever really had) the ability to think instead of merely reacting how we’re told to react by the talking heads on Fox Noise Channel.
It’s not fashionable for a Liberal like myself to impugn the intelligence of the American Sheeple. Liberals generally like to pretend that they believe in the innate wisdom and goodness of the American Sheeple. I realize that in writing this I’m probably managing to paint myself as a horribly intolerant intellectual snob [insert “effete intellectual elitist” remark here]. Really, though; when you evaluate the level of discourse that exists in this country today, how could one possibly draw any other conclusion than that we’re a nation of D students getting by because we can’t possibly flunk? I use the term “idiocracy” example a lot, mostly because I think it’s an apt description of our collective intellectual (in)capacity and agility, but when you listen to Americans these days, it’s like one extended face-palm moment. Nowhere has this been more true than within the Tea Party, which apparently stands for “Too Edumicated Already”.
Americans have a more negative view of government today than they did a decade ago, or even a few years ago. Most say it focuses on the wrong things and lack confidence that it can solve big domestic problems; this general anti-Washington sentiment is helping to fuel a potential Republican takeover of Congress next month.
But ask people what they expect the government to do for themselves and their families, and a more complicated picture emerges.
A new study by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University shows that most Americans who say they want more limited government also call Social Security and Medicare “very important.” They want Washington to be involved in schools and to help reduce poverty. Nearly half want the government to maintain a role in regulating health care.
These are some of the same folks who show up at Tea Party rallies carrying signs demanding the the government keep their hands off Medicare. Someone really ought to break it gently to these folks that Medicare is, in fact, a GOVERNMENT program…and one that works damn well. Social Security is the same sort of situation (and it would be healthy and solvent if Congress would stop raiding the trust fund like an addict trying to pay for hookers and blow).
The reality is that people hate government programs that don’t impact and benefit them directly. Unemployment? Well, it’s easy to see it as coddling lazy, shiftless, wankers if you’re gainfully employed. The same holds for welfare. And, of course, the American Sheeple have long been dialed into the artificially-created Reagan reality that “Government IS the problem”. Yeah, right; ya just gotta love the smug arrogance of those too stupid to actually think.
Government is not the problem. Frankly, without government, we’d have anarchy; we’d still be clubbing each other over the head and stealing each other’s women. Government is what in a very real sense makes the trains run on time. It’s what gives us the rule of law, which is what prevents us being just another revolution-of-the-week banana republic. No, government is not the problem; the American Sheeple who care for little beyond their own narrow self-interest is. Yes, as Churchill once said, democracy is the worst form of government imaginable…except for every other system out there. Unfortunately, what we have in this country really IS an idiocracy. And it appears that things will only get worse.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
Then again, that would mean that the American Sheeple would actually need to give a damn….
