There is only one conclusion a sensible person can come to with regard to the state of the nation this past year.
Americans are too stupid for freedom.
Before every one of the elitist academician Marxist-Socialist-Progressive-Democrats (some of whom may be related to me) jump down from their pedestals, fists first, tongues lashing, let me preface this post by saying I am not a Republican. The past month or so has me questioning whether or not I’m an Independent. My beliefs now lean heavily toward Libertarian.
I care not one whit about either major party, except to say that I firmly believe both are the root cause for most of the trouble we are now experiencing. I do care about our country, which has now been faltering more often than setting a good example.
In my business, I talk to people all day long. Teenagers, parents of teenagers, old people, government officials and government workers. Many folks do not know how to piece together enough coherent sentences to make a business telephone conversation. It’s apparent that this nation has been suffering from a “dumbing down” effect for a long, long time.
For example, take our schools. Forget the English language and literature. Most kids (and their parents) these days are unfamiliar with national geography including our states and capitals. It’s no wonder then that they do not know world geography or world events. They believe history is what happened the last ten years, and most have no intricate knowledge of the rich heritage of this country and how it came into being.
The modern American doesn’t know how to make anything anymore. Walk into any store, where a good percentage of the merchandise comes from somewhere else. Standing in a long line in Joanne's Fabrics, I picked up every single chachki for sale along the way to the register. Everything I touched had been made in China.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Doug Hunter
Congratulations on coming to the realization that you're a libertarian, be prepared for much scorn and derision. It's a long uphill battle, one entrenched side is allowed to basically buy votes from the poor while the other conspires with big business using graft and corruption to steal the country. Libertarian principles don't allow you to participate in either manner so your voice will often be drowned out.
As for the dumbing down of America, I'd say that's mostly a misnomer and is simply a side effect of a highly technological society. There's no easy answer here.
2 - Clavos
...one entrenched side is allowed to basically buy votes from the poor while the other conspires with big business using graft and corruption to steal the country.
Quoted for Truth.
3 - Clavos
As for the dumbing down of America, I'd say that's mostly a misnomer and is simply a side effect of a highly technological society.
I disagree. I don't think Americans as a population are any less intelligent than they once were, but they certainly are less well educated these days.
For confirmation of this, I offer the fact that, my mother in law, a college English professor, is obliged to teach at least one course of remedial English for incoming freshmen every quarter. She has worked at three different universities in as many states, and all of them have found it necessary to have these courses.
The quality of American public school education is reprehensible, especially when compared with similar schooling in Europe and Asia.
4 - Baronius
Joanne, I'm not bothered by Congressional health care benefits. There's no good reason why a person's insurance should be linked to his employment, but since that's the situation in America, I don't begrudge a congressman his perks or his pay. There's no rule that we should all have the same health care benefits.
(As a side note, there is an expectation that we should all have access to equivalent education. It bothers me a great deal that political figures should send their children to private schools. Special security concerns aside, of course.)
You refer to another fact that people have been bashing Congress with, that congressmen don't read the legislation. I don't understand why that upsets people.
5 - Baronius
Hey, Clav. Interesting that we both went on the same digression, but from different starting points. What a mess the public education system is!
6 - Joanne Huspek
I suppose it really bothers me that no one is researching, reading or examining these bills because we have the same closed-door mentality in Michigan. Why should just a few legislators write and pass the bills? I don't trust anyone that much. It only makes sense to read a legal document. Do you buy a car or a house without reading the paperwork? Besides the inclination for me to think that some of these people cannot understand the bills (therefore they don't bother to read them), passing laws in this manner means that a lot of things can be slipped in on the sly, ergo the so-called "stimulus" package which was really a bacon explosion.
7 - Clavos
ergo the so-called "stimulus" package which was really a bacon explosion.
Excellent description! Apropos and funny!
8 - Ruvy
Joanne,
The dumbing down of Amrica was not "accidental", it was purposeful. A nation of tinkerers whose main book of reference is a Bible or a Farmer's Almanac is very well educated - when you compare them to the "professionals" surrounding you today.
It's hard to bullshit a tinkerer. He (or she) understands how things work from the inside. But if everything you have is made by slaves in China and your very car is a fancy computer that takes a machine to analyze its problems, you can be taken for all sorts of rides - and not just in your car.
And America has been taken for one bitch of a ride. And a whole bunch of you are still being taken for rides and do not even realize it.
9 - Baronius
Joanne, are you complaining that the citizens aren't reading the legislation, or the legislators aren't? It might sound weird, but I think it's more important that the voters have the chance to read it than the congressmen necessarily read it.
A member of Congress should have a staff and his party's whip telling him what's in a bill. He's the coach, and it's his responsibility to assemble a winning team, but he doesn't have to be on the field. I'd like to see legislation shorter and clearer, but given the level of detail in bills as they are currently written, it'd be unfair to expect a congressman to understand every aspect of every law.
10 - Cannonshop
#9 I don't think it's rational to pass a law you don't understand, myself.
11 - Baronius
Cannon, imagine you're a former Colonel, now representing the Fort Benning area in Congress. You're on the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. The CDC is pushing for 20-day quarantines on Chilean genetically-engineered soybeans, but Customs insists that they'll need a .2% budget increase to accomodate it. What's your position?
12 - Libertarians Are Dumb
The dumbest people on earth are the dumbos that fell for that Libertarian Alan Greenspan Larry Summers Bob Rubin Tim Geithner Ayn Rand idiocy about unregulated free markets!
What a hoax!
Just think: the whole US economy brought down by a bad clarinetist in thrall to a lousy novelist!
And look at all the dummies who fell for it!
13 - Chip Etier
I typically claim to be "apolitical" and boast of my 9 year "news fast". You've lured me into the fray here.
All too often, political satire is too close to the truth for comfort as was the case in the movie, "Bullworth". I think he got it right. As long as 95% of the money is controlled by 5% of the population, it doesn't matter which party is in control. I'm with you Joanne. It sounds like if I have to pick a party, the Libertarians are better than the alternatives!
14 - handyguy
This is the latest of several articles in which Joanne opines very confidently about economics and politics and accompanies this by bragging that she never reads or watches the news.
Perhaps she just plugs a coax cable directly into the base of her skull and downloads 'pure facts,' untainted by any bias.
You have to get your knowledge of the world from somewhere. Lumping all journalism together as if it's all exactly the same in quality and intention -- well, all this proves is your own ignorance about journalism.
You have to get information from various sources and then use the brains God gave you to sort it out. No intelligent person just accepts it all at face value...and no intelligent person rejects it all, en masse, either.
15 - Cannonshop
#11: First off:
Your example is one of an "Executive" decision-what's it doing on the desk of a Legislator? We have agencies with officials to make decisions on those scores, officials who derive their power from existing laws passed by Congress regarding public safety and food quality. (FDA anyone? Bueller?)
But...if Congress has to do the Chief Executive's job of getting HIS people to do THEIRS, then I'd have to ask CDC to make their case, and Treasury to make THEIR case, weigh it, and as Colonels are Officers (and therefore had to pass College courses, including Logic and/or higher maths, basic science requirements, etc.) I'd probably send out staffers to find me four experts on the subject with opposing views to explain it to me-and make 'em (or pay 'em) to explain it until I understood.
'Cause, y'know, that's what a Colonel would do-get his staff and any other accessable experts to explain the situation, and make 'em keep trying until he understands it enough to make a decision.
If time-pressure is involved, tell Treasury to suck it up and find the money somewhere in their budget, Or justify why it's not necessary.
16 - Kenn Jacobine
Joanne,
Excellent piece! I think Americans are too stupid for freedom that is why we have this massive nanny state.
I mean post #12 says it all: "The dumbest people on earth are the dumbos that fell for that Libertarian Alan Greenspan Larry Summers Bob Rubin Tim Geithner Ayn Rand idiocy about unregulated free markets!"
These guys are crony capitalists not libertarians. But, most Americans will buy this B.S. and not know any better.
I also think Americans are afraid of freedom. The "Greatest Generation" grew up with Rooseveltian fascism and they can't let go of all the so called protections that bastard instituted in the government - FDIC, Social Security, Securities and Exchange commission. You know all the agencies that were to protect us from ourselves, but don't.
Welcome to the libertarian side.
17 - Ruvy
... Rooseveltian fascism and they can't let go of all the so called protections that bastard instituted in the government - FDIC, Social Security, Securities and Exchange commission. You know all the agencies that were to protect us from ourselves, but don't.
Roosevelt's mildly fascistic policies did protect Americans from themselves - until the American Congress gutted the protections in them in the 1980's under Reagan and in the 1990's under Clinton.
Kenn, you miss a salient point forgotten - evil avoided is often forgotten entirely. Had Roosevelt not done something to protect Americans in one way or another from the starvation, depression, lack of dignity and pain of dispossession that came from the stock market crash brought upon them by selfish Wall Street bankers, there would have been a communist revolution in the States. Americans were sick of capitalism and its exploitative traits - and were ready to kill the capitalists en masse. There would have been a civil war in the 1930's akin to Spain's had Roosevelt not acted with decisiveness when he did. I remember very well the discussions my parents had about how there had almost been a revolution in 1932 in the States. Farmers drove off shriffs trying to repossess farms, seeing off marshalls with sawed off shotguns.
I know that what I say below will be distorted by all sorts of moronic idiots whose brains are smaller than marmosets, but let's compare Roosevelt with Hitler for a moment to see why Roosevelt's actions did not bring America out of the economic doldrums - while Hitler succeeded in just that goal in Germany.
Hitler had a "positive" goal - that of re-molding German society to conquer the world; he utilized every tool available to him to accomplish this re-molding. And the big tool he used was production - hence the lesson: you produce yourself out of a recession and economic abyss.
Roosevelt had no such goal. His goal was economic recovery - with the particular goal of preventing a communist revolution. So, he set a thief, Joe Kennedy, over the thieves at Wall Street, he tried to prevent the collapse of the banks with a bank holiday, and then the devaluation of the currency and withdrawal of gold from circulation, he tried to restore faith in bank depositss with the FDIC, while preventing banks from again speculating in the market. He tried to restore workers' faith in factories with a federally mandated 8 hour day, a federally mandated minimu wage, Social Security and a national program of Workmens Comp. While he succeeded, all these programs did not spark production - and while you can (if you do not owe oodles of billions of dollars overseas) spend your way out of the worst aspects of an economic collapse, it is production that actually gets you out of the abyss. This did not occur in the States until the States were forced to produce weapons to protect England and later itself.
The Austrian banking system collpased in 1931. Germany nearly went into a civil war before 1933. Spain did go into a civil war. A socialist goverment in the UK could do nothing to alleviate the depression there. French money lost its value altogether, as did the money in Austria, Italy and almost all of the rest debt-ridden Europe. The Europeans did not have the wherewithal to overspend and overspend the way the Americans did and suffered terribly until after WWII and a generous American people set them arights.
18 - Joanne Huspek
I admit, I was once a news junkie. 9-11 ended that for me. I spent the entire month afterward glued to the TV and almost had a nervous breakdown as a result. This is bad, very bad. "News" for the most part is negative, and negativity breeds more of the same.
My ideas were reinforced by reading Jeffrey Gitomer, who is a motivational seller. He limits himself to five minutes of "news" each day.
I have admitted that I watch all news outlets, but in moderation. Yes, even Rachel Maddow. However, since being on the "news" diet, I can only stomach so much. Where do I get my info? By reading voraciously, books and online. I also read newspapers. I'm not keyed into one outlet, nor do I believe everything I read.
That's the sensible way.
19 - John Lake
As Baronius mentioned in '9' above, I not absolutly certain that the politicians aren't reading the bills. In theory they and their staffs have evolved a strict idea of they what they expect from a proposal, and search for one that satisfies that need.
There have been theories of economics and such brought forth that illustrated to opposite side of the coin.I recall thinking how simplistic and foolish it was for George Walker Bush to establish his bottom line on economics:
We will give them money, they will spend it!
Ignore the "law of diminishing returns" - ...but that was a long time ago.
As many of the posts at this outlet show, there is a rising tide in opposition to the ever increading corruption in government. And that's good.
20 - Baronius
I hadn't noticed that Geithner was labelled a libertarian. That's nonsense.
21 - Baronius
Ruvy, Germany didn't prosper simply through increased production. They stopped paying off their national debt and confiscated private property, even early in the Nazi regime. They bolstered their economy with the spoils of war. Anyone can take 90% of Europe's farmland, feed 70% of Europe, and make a profit. Roosevelt couldn't have spent his way out of the Depression.
Cannon, you wouldn't have the opportunity to question anyone if you weren't on the right committee. You'd have to trust your staff. I don't doubt the Colonel's intelligence, only his expertise. At some point he's going to say, "I don't know anything about soybeans, but 95% of my Republican colleagues are calling this unnecessary spending". He shouldn't waste his time reading the bill when there are NATO commanders lined up for hearings.
I mean, look at BC politics. Other than Dave, none of us are experts on everything. I'm no expert on health care, but if I were in Congress, I wouldn't have to read HR 3200 to know how I'd vote on it.
22 - Zedd
Joanne,
I think your article was ill considered. "Once we had ethics"... whaaaa? When? You also make the ridiculous assumption that people are as light as you may very well be (based on what you've written in this article). Who votes for a President to get a check?? Why did you even say that? Are you playing the ditsy girl or are you serious? Do you really believe that? Are you really that clueless?
"Maybe our elected officials are right. Maybe we are too stupid for freedom"
Maybe SOME people are....
Let's all hope you had an off day. Wow.
23 - Joanne Huspek
Zedd: I am only relaying what I heard people (who I know and who work for me) said because THEY believed it. There was nothing I could say to them to get them to believe otherwise. I could not find the original video I caught of the recent Detroit near riot --on the radio, but I distinctly heard people saying aloud these exact sentiments. I'm no journalist but I'm not making up these conversations.
24 - Silas Kain
I love this piece. We spent the week with friends who were in from Australia. Whenever we're together discussions inevitably turn to politics in both countries. This time around I asked about why Australia isn't a Republic. And the answer was quite spot on. My friend's reply was, "We're not quite ready to be a Republic because we haven't got this right yet. All we have to do is reference you here in the States. IF you had a Prime Minister and the Crown, you wouldn't be in such a state of disarray."
I agree. Your Majesty, take us back.
25 - Butch Manlington
Good article. Sad but I agree with what some of the commenters are saying. Neither party ever wants to rock the boat economically when they finally come into power which can have bad repercussions. I sympathize with Libertarians on that issue.
About "global dumbening." I'm taking pre-orders for my book thats coming out soon called: Everything I Learned, I Learned From My iPhone. Any takers?