The 43% or so of Americans who think The Man Who Would Be King is doing a good job: is ignorance bliss? Is stupid forever?
And why do TV networks, even their news divisions, pander to 18-34 year olds?
Since the networks gear their programming to adolescents and young adults, why do the manufacturers of Viagra and Cialis continue to pump their ads over the airways every 30 seconds or so?
Inquiring minds would like to know.
When I was 18 to 34, I was poorer than dirt, working my way through college, then paying rent, then a mortgage.
It wasn’t until I was well into my forties that I had any disposable income at all.
For years, I’ve been buying house brands for small ticket items and, for major purchases, like my truck, products that have proven their reliability based on personal experience and recommendations of people I trust.
If you watch TV, you’d conclude that my spending patterns must be totally atypical. The great unwashed must be throwing their cash, in the billions, at companies that produce the sexiest ads, whether they are shilling laundry detergent or automobiles, regardless of how good the products are, or how much they cost.
Porn and online sex are big industries in the United States, and these have pretty much been ignored by the Taliban at the White House, who still have a reputation for being moral exemplars to the stupidest 43% of Americans.
Interestingly enough, at least some in the private sector are on the ball in this regard: Dateline NBC has been so overwhelmed by positive viewer response to their Internet Predators series that they aired the third segment last night.
More to the point of this blog: I was struck by the number of times the word “stupid” came up in conversations with the predators, all of whom are men.
When confronted by the NBC reporter, over and over again, they used that word, “stupid”, to describe what they were doing.
So, besides electing lousy politicians and degrading the public media, the dumb are also the ones who are preying on our kids and grandkids.
Does it ever feel to you like the dumb minority rules in America? It sure does to me: people who ignore the facts when they elect a President and Congress, whose undeveloped aesthetic and generally bad taste rule the airways, and whose lack of civic responsibility, not to mention courage and conviction, permit local and state governments and school districts to get away with mediocre performance while throwing taxpayer money away like it’s a form of trash.
Further, it’s a pretty good guess that the dumb 43% are also the ones who end up in divorce court, dragging the rest of us into the mire of the social problems this creates.
It’s got to be the dumb and the self-absorbed that become alcoholics and drug addicts, petty thieves and worse, ending up as wards of the state via the prison system, and leaving their innocent children to fend for themselves in the horror known as foster care.
As a consequence, it’s the dumb that have made the bloated bureaucracy of government at every level necessary both to take care of them and to serve as a buffer for those who actually pay the bills.
There used to be a rule that 80% of resources were needed to deal with 20% of the population, whether in a town or a business.
Nowadays, it feels more like 50/50.
Not to be uncharitable to those who are dumb through no fault of their own, but I’m tired of having the quality of life degraded by the dumb.
If there were a way to isolate them into half of the territorial United States, then I’d vote for a bloodless Civil War and a division of the the US into two countries.
Britain and Tony Blair can ally themselves with the dumb half, and France with the smart.
So, why are people so dumb? Like Elizabeth Dole, who is certainly NOT dumb, I believe it starts with family values.
Everybody wants their kids to be popular and attractive. This means going along to get along, and fading into to the conformist crowd.
Men marry women because they want to impress their male buddies with the high grade of eye candy attached to their arm. When the eye candy gives up bulemia and gains 15 pounds, she and the kids get ditched so that Daddy dearest can relive past glory with a brand new 20 year old.
Schools force kids and parents to be compliant because teachers have been protected from pay for performance by powerful labor unions for decades and administrators are accountable to no one.
Politicans don’t want to rock the boat because otherwise they and their family members will be subject to vicious, personal smear campaigns.
It’s the dumb, the dumber and the dumbest that don’t talk with their kids about history or current events, who tolerate lousy schools out of laziness and who judge other people based on looks rather than character, whether it’s in selecting a mate or choosing an elected official.
It’s the dumb that spread computer viruses because they are too lazy to purchase, use and update virus protection software.
It’s this same group that cause traffic accidents because either a) they don’t know how to drive; b) they are selfish and inconsiderate and/or c) they don’t keep their vehicles in good repair.
The dumb affect all of us with their ignorance, poor judgment and lack of social responsibility.
Municipalities have had a field day in the last 10 years or so passing anti-smoking ordinances, on the basis that the second-hand derivative of this habit hurts other people.
Why don’t they legislate against dumbness instead?