Stupid People

I recognize that what I am about to write may be interpreted as judgmental, offensive, and or rude…
...but has that really ever stopped me in the past?

I Hate Stupid People!

Let’s break this statement down a little bit. What I’m trying to say is that I hate much of what the American society typifies.

Recently, I have had the opportunity to engage more directly with the political arena. This has caused me to do a little more reading and research than usual. In my findings, I have realized that the current issues at hand are not quite what most would think. There isn’t a conspiracy afoot either.

With all of the debate about politics, social issues, or even religion it isn’t the issue of whether there is health care reform, for example, but it is the way in which people react to it. I am deeply concerned over the state of our societal behaviors that are considered appropriate. When the United States was merely a group of colonies in infancy, there was a deep division among the colonies as to whether or not to publicly cede from Great Britain. Many of our founding fathers who we esteem so highly now, were not in favor of separating from a government that had taken care of them monetarily for establishing the new land. Basically, some were afraid to bite the hand that feeds. Let’s be honest, I don’t blame them; it is a difficult position to be placed in.

However, when the time came to discuss the merits of the decision they were facing, they were able to respectfully disagree with one another on the issues. For the most part, even when there was a personality conflict, these great men were able to set It aside and respect the other, his background, his experience, and most importantly his opinion.

This is a stark contrast to society today. Issues such as global warming, illegal immigration, health care reform, wars, nuclear weapons, incite such negative rhetoric between either side of the line that the divisiveness is much greater than the singular issue. The individuals bantering back and forth in chat rooms and on comment boards is more sickening to me than whether there really was weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or not.

Take a moment and read the comments made by readers of a story on a current hot-topic. These wasteful monologues and tirades are emblematic of the fabric of the nation. People who get there information from sound bites and then spew them with hateful and inciting rhetoric to other fellow citizens, without doing their own personal education on the subject, has removed us further from what America stood for in the late 1700’s to where we are presently. Being beholden to a political party, societal clique, or even religious movement is not completely immoral unless we remember that we are all Americans collectively. Though we may disagree on the method of which we might get from point A to point B, the lack of communal respect for our neighbor has done more to decimate the standards of American life than terrorists, democrats/republicans, or any other ‘evil’ that one side labels the other.

The American people are imploding from the inside. They are stupid to think that attempting to impose an opinion based upon garbage information is truly going to help motivate or convince others. What we end up with are the ‘town-hall’ meetings that we are hearing about in the news where people are yelling and physically fighting over a 30-second sound bite they heard from someone else.

It doesn’t matter whether it came from Rush Limbaugh or James Carville, the fault lies on both sides. The bigger problem is that the American people are too gullible for their own good. Americans are not much different from North Koreans in believing everything they are told. The cynical behavior and thoughts have moved beyond the political issues now and reside even in the most tragic of circumstances. As a test, I invite you to open up the website for your local paper. Find a headline that references a sad or tragic accident or event. Then read the comment board. I will almost guarantee there is a comment within the first ten that exemplifies a gross level of ignorance, bigotry, hatred, or is attempting to incite such.

This is the America we have become. Not a socialist, progressive, conservative, right wing, communist state but rather a cynical, sarcastic, contemptuous, disparaging, abusive, disrespectful, and unloving nation.

I am not a hippie, nor do I play one on TV. This isn’t about peace, love, and kumbaya. This is about the paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln gave when he proclaimed a house divided against itself cannot stand. America won’t be around long enough to see the effects of global-warming, whether it exists or not, if the people cannot find a way to honor and respect their fellowman in a way that honors the country as it was intended to be from the beginning. A place where men and women could be free from tyranny, both external and internal. To become such is going to require its’ citizens to stop being so stupid.