USA: Beacon of Stupid

During one of George Carlin's later shows, I distinctly remember his saying something along the following lines: "There are a lot of stupid fucking people in this country. And they all vote."

As time goes on, the number of people referenced in that first sentence seems to keep growing at an exponential rate, and I see no way of stopping it in the short term. While Bush may have spoken about no children being left behind, the fact of the matter is that he couldn't give a rat's ass if they did. Not only does Bush not value education, but he convinced his followers to value his drinking instead of his thinking. And why are his followers like this?

BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING STUPID.
And it's not just following Bush, per se. There are a bunch of people out there who, to this day, still think that Iraq had WMD and was directly responsible for that infamous day in September. They still blindly support this war like rabid face-painted fans at a football game, blissfully uncaring of the fact that the man who is universally agreed upon to have masterminded the event in question is still relaxing somewhere on a chaise lounge by a pool with a cute umbrella in his drink. They still think that it's to our benefit to remain in Iraq indefinitely, as if we would actually "defeat terrorism" by our continued presence there. And why do they believe this?

BECAUSE THEY'RE FUCKING STUPID.
Even more alarming than the ignorance of the predictable war supporters is the ignorance of our population at large. Raving Political Animal Steve Benen (rawr!) highlighted a new Pew Survey on News Consumption that had some startling finds. Participants were asked three questions:

1. Which party holds the majority in the House?
2. What is the name of the current Secretary of State?
3. What is the name of the current British Prime Minister?

Read and weep:

About half of Americans (53%) can correctly identify the Democrats as the party that has a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. In February 2007, shortly after the Democrats gained control of the House after a dozen years of GOP rule, many more people (76%) knew the Democrats held the majority.

The public is less familiar with the secretary of state (Condoleezza Rice) and the prime minister of Great Britain (Gordon Brown). About four-in-ten (42%) can name Rice as the current secretary of state. The public’s ability to identify Rice has not changed much over recent years: In April 2006 and December 2004, shortly before she was sworn in, 43% could correctly identify her.

The prime minister of Great Britain is not well known among the public. Just more than a quarter (28%) can correctly identify Gordon Brown as the leader of Great Britain.

Overall, 18% of the public is able to correctly answer all three political knowledge questions, while a third (33%) do not know the answer to any of the questions.

One item that I found particularly disturbing was that fewer Democrats knew that the House had a Dem majority. But wait, teh stupid gets better.

The other day, ThinkProgress reported about someone who called in to Mike Gallagher's radio show to talk about the recent California state ruling which prevents doctors from using their religion to deny medical treatment based on a patient's sexual orientation.

DAVID: The question I had told your screener, I said, if I’m understanding, California said because of sexual orientation, they can’t deny you service, so, does that mean pedophiles could adopt?

Read that one over so you can appreciate the full level of FUCKING STUPID. I really need to know what synaptic connections are simply missing for one to make that leap.

(Doctors must treat all patients) = (Pedophiles can adopt, and presumably molest, young kids.)

If there are any Shakers who are neurosurgeons, please chime in on this one, because I'd like to think there is an actual medical reason as to why these people ARE SO FUCKING STUPID.

To the matter at hand, though, I'm at a loss as to how to get people to remove the blinders. Until we get to the point when teh stoopids are in a real minority, I propose the following:

To handle the aforementioned phone caller, a new resolution should be introduced that allows doctors to refuse treatment of a patient based on their being so FUCKING STUPID. Got bronchitis? Cough out your stupid. Toothache? Stop eating stupid. Brain tumor? Stop thinking stupid. Sprained ankle? Stop walking stupid.

As for our national crises born out of stupid voters, we need to move to a parliamentary system. That way we can finally abandon this elite two-party lunacy and actually have representation for people who have functional gray matter between their ears.

People like us.