Wednesday, April 18, 2012

How Stupid Are We?

“Sometimes societies become too stupid to survive,” wrote columnist Mark Steyn last Saturday.

I cannot get the line out of my head. He was talking about America’s steady march to bankruptcy which, if it goes on much longer (like past November), will become irreversible. Has America become too stupid to survive? It would be an easy case to make.

We have a congress with the lowest approval ratings in history. Fewer than 10% of us agree with what our representatives are doing down there in Washington. The people answering the pollsters’ questions, however, are the same people who vote them in every two to six years! What does that tell us about ourselves? Answer that. Are we stupid?

Clearly, President Obama and his campaign operatives think we are. Either that or they’re stupid, and it wouldn’t be difficult to make that case either. Last Thursday, columnist Charles Krauthammer quoted our president speaking in September, 2011:

Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a [higher] tax rate than Warren Buffett. . . . And that basic principle of fairness, if applied to our tax code, could raise enough money [to] stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade. . . . This is not politics; this is math.
But it’s not math. It simply doesn’t add up as both Krauthammer and Steyn emphasized last week. Both demonstrated mathematically that if the “Buffett Rule” were to collect taxes from wealthy Americans as the president proposes, it would take centuries to offset even one year of Obama’s deficits. So the president’s claim is either politics or stupidity, but it’s certainly not math.

My liberal friends - and I do have some, believe it or not - fervently believe President Obama is highly intelligent. For me even to suggest that he may not be makes them think I’m stupid. But consider this: Just a few weeks ago, President Obama said it would be “unprecedented” for “unelected” US Supreme Court to overturn his Affordable Care Act which most people know as “Obamacare.” That’s just flat wrong. So why would he say it?

Four possibilities:

One - he’s stupid, because he doesn’t understand how the US government has worked since 1803’s “Marbury vs Madison.”

“But he graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law School where he was editor of the Law Review!” my liberal friends exclaim. That means he can’t be stupid, right? He must be brilliant or he never would have gotten that far, right?

We cannot see President Obama’s college records. He won’t let us. Why? Did he get admitted to the Ivy League through Affirmative Action because he’s black? Where’s the evidence that he’s intelligent? I haven’t seen it. Is reading well from an teleprompter evidence of intelligence? Not to me. I’ve met too many Ivy League graduates whose intelligence is underwhelming. Of President Obama’s profound intelligence, I remain profoundly unconvinced.

Two - He’s a narcissist who believes his press clippings and thinks he can’t be wrong.

Three - He’s trying to bully the Supreme Court into voting for the constitutionality of his biggest “accomplishment” - the so-called “Affordable Care Act.” You know - the one we can’t afford because it’s costing twice what he said it would. A more suitable name would be the “Unaffordable Care Act.” By calling Supreme Court “unelected” he’s trying to stir resentment by suggesting to American voters that these “unelected” justices might take away their healthcare.

Four: It’s politics. Obama was forced to admit last week that the “Buffet Rule” is a gimmick that won’t do much to reduce the deficit, but he keeps saying “the rich aren’t paying their fair share” because he’s already planted the idea in feeble-minded voters that it will. And, he knows stirring up class warfare will help him in November. He believes America is stupid enough to buy it all. If he’s right, he gets reelected. If he gets reelected, we’re doomed.

That’s the biggest part of President Obama’s campaign strategy. He has no plan to reduce the deficit. Instead of reversing our march to bankruptcy, he’s accelerating it. If he wins, I guess I’ll have to accept that Mark Steyn’s fear is realistic America may have become too stupid to survive.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank the founding fathers for the right to speak your mind. Yes you can call the President stupid.

Anonymous said...

He's actually brillant. President Obama is trying to "break" this country by taking us down financially. Obamacare is but one of many spending programs,tools, to accomplish the deed. His words are not in sync with his actions. To me, this is pure evil. Common sense dictates that we are on the road to perdition. You don't even need to get theoretical, look at Greece ..... heck, look at California. Yes, unfortunately, our President is smart and he has to break us first in order to usher in "utopia". - From Tom down the street

Anonymous said...

Obama has been nothing more than a psy op in the american people. I saw it coming like many other americans. The perfect foil to W--seemingly intelligent, articulate and a constitutional "scholar". Wow. Sounds great, right? No, he is not that intelligent. A very boring monotone speaker and he spits on the constitution.
I can't believe you don't mention NDAA in you article? YOu realize he's being sued over this, right?
And an article of impeachment has been brought to congress by a rep. from N. Carolina! WHy? Leon Panetta smugly admitted that the Obama admin. doesn't need congressional approval for war but UN approval!! Libya, anyone? Illegal and a complete disaster fro the Libyan people. Obama gloated over murdering three us citizens with a drone, one 16, with no due process!!! I hated al awaki, but come on! He was eating dinner in the white house a few years ago!
Obama promised transparency and protection of whistelblowers---not only has he NOT been transparent (in fact the most secretive prosecutorial admin ever) but he has prosecuted more whistleblowers than any president in history!! Any president in history!

The only people still supporting him are the complacent idle rich and the wanna be trendy yuppies.

But, to address the idea you put forth--"how stupid are we?"-----well, very. Perhaps the stupidest thing to do at this point is to still keep pretending there is a spit of difference between the left and right, the democrats and republicans. The dualistic paradigm works to divide and conquer, obviously. So stop playing a fixed game! Please! For the sake of this country! It's a lie!! Obama has furthered the neo con agenda, but call him liberal and all of the sudden he isn't carrying out the neo con war agenda? Please....

Congress is a joke. Bought and sold. The presidency is a joke. We live in an increasing state of corporate fascism. Period. The only way to change anything is through civll disobedience.
Of course, if we had a real media, a real press corps. dedicated to keeping D.C. in check then the mega banksters wouldn't be able to get away with as much.

Yup, we are stupid. But who has the bravery, the integrity, the honor to stand up and call bullshit in a nation of brainwashed hyper consuming zombies??
No one. Thats why you all will go back to the comfortable lies of the republicans and democrats and the corporate media--and youll keep waiting in vain while more of our rights are stripped, more wars waged, and more dead pile up. Gas will keep rising, and you'll do nothing. Sure, you'll make fun of the true patriots out there protesting because you lack the spine to stand up for what's right along with the ability to think for yourselves.

Yup, stupid....

Winston Smith said...

No kidding!
Unfortunately, and to our eternal shame, occupy wall st. was maligned in the press and, at first blatantly ignored, then blatantly lied about!
The corporate/ banker media had people actually believing occupy NY was a free sex and drug binge rather than an attempt by fed up americans to voice their opposition to the illegal banking system. Sure, there were drumming hippies and violence, it when that's all you focus on ( and it wasn't nearly as bad as it was sold to be) rather than the truth, well, then, yes we is very very stupid....
Henry David Thoreau. Civil disobedience. Read it.
Civil disobedience is all we have left. Every tax paying american has the right to dissent and should be encouraged to do so...it is truly sickening to see so called patriots swallowing the corporate media lies about OWS hook line and sinker. Mindless complicity bred from stupidity and timidity. With the technology and info available there is no excuse for such ignorance when it comes to merely pupettng the corporate media talking points. No excuse.

What are you gonna do, vote? Really? Voting is going to change it huh? Hahahahaha.....

Wake up America, the end is nigh!

Anonymous said...

Lots of noise, nothing new.

pp said...

You know what Tom? You don't have a clue what you're talking about. You know how unevenly the distribution of wealth is in the US, right? Let me tell you...
"In 2007, America’s top 1 percent held nearly $3.3 trillion more wealth than the entire bottom 90 percent, according to Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data released early in 2009."

So if you raise taxes on the rich, guess what? You make a more than significant dent in the deficit, because those richest people have MOST of the money - money that can and should be taxed fairly. What's your alternative? To leave things as they are and let all the middle and poor shoulder MORE of the burden than the rich?

pp said...

I thought so. Usually when a blogger doesn't really believe in his stated convictions, they remain silent when challenged by the commenters. Especially when they're challenged with things like FACTS!