Stupid People

Perhaps I should stop reading blogs for a while. I continue to be amazed at the stupidity of people in positions of power. Our US politicians who utter notorious things while the microphones are still on or make statements that cause us to questions their ability to reason are just the tip of the iceberg.

People in Nottingham, England, are fussing about which way the graves face in the public cemetery. A bishop in Africa claims to “control” 70% of the world’s Anglicans. The Pope disses Islam’s founder by quoting an obscure secular text. And, GWB just keeps puttering along, leaving gaseous waste behind. People are clear-cutting older forests in order to keep their land from being protected environment for woodpeckers...ruining views for which people have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars and causing untold environmental damage from rainwater run-off.

Someone once told me that the percentage of crazy people in the world had not increased; only the total number of people had increased. So, we see more crazies than before. But, that doesn’t mean that we should elect them to office or give them space in our newspapers. Of course, given freedom of speech, which I uphold dearly, they do have a right to speak or write their opinions. And, they can exercise their property rights. And, they can be called stupid. All without repercussion from the law.

I don’t tolerate stupidity very well. In the face of increasing stupidity, I leave my pacifist leanings behind to rely on my family’s favorite epithet: “I could just slap them cross-eyed.” Whatever was God thinking when he withheld reason from some of the population? And, who do they think made them God?

And, now our voting machines are computerized for the sake of quick counting and supposed accuracy. Only, these machines can be infected with a virus program that steals votes from one candidate and gives them to another – in a random enough way to prevent detection. Then, the virus erases itself and no one knows the difference. Never mind chads and stuffed ballot boxes and dead people voting. All we have to do is shift votes that are cast by valid voters.

I’m thinking of standing on a street corner with my sign, but I don’t know what it would say. I’d have to change it every hour to get through my list of gripes about stupid people, those nearby and those far away. However, researchers say that stress shortens one’s life, and I like living even with the kooks around. And, perhaps they would say that I am one.

I’ll keep voting, writing letters, making my opinions known and talking to those in power and hope that I am speaking truth to power – not stupidity to stupidity.