Why are so many people so fucking stupid?

[MrScorpio]

Is it really that hard to THINK instead of parroting right wing propaganda?

[SoCalDem]

1. yes

:)

[apnu]

2. Examples please?

Here? There? In a house? With a mouse?

[MrScorpio]

6. I was listening to WJ

"I don't believe that Michele Obama really loves America. Yes, she said it last night, but before she should her true feelings when she said that 'for the first time she was proud of America' when her husband was nominated. Blah, blah, fucking blah!"

[apnu]

9. Yeah well that's the 30 percenter's for you.

There will always be a section of the population that will cut their own noses off in spite of their faces. These are the same idiots that answer Nigerian scams. And honestly think Iraq is about bringing freedom to the Iraqi people.

Some you can't help, you just have to put up with them and move on.

What's sad, is these folks make for good news, or so the piss-yellow journalists think. They don't make for any news at all. Its hardly news worthy to find some nut-bar in the obvious minority to rail against whatever the topic is. What that is, we call sensationalism. But I suspect you know this already.

I feel you pain, I've been embarrassed for my country since 1994. From Newt on, its all been down hill.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. Ha, I've been embarrassed since 1980

when I sat in my living room with some friends from grad school, all of us stunned that America had just elected Ronald Reagan.

[apnu]

16. I was 7 and didn't understand politics then.

1992 was my first election, but that time I had seen Regan call my mother a welfare queen, and Shrub was well, Shrub. 'nuff said. But then Clinton was a breath of fresh air, and I was proud that my country had elected him to office. then 1994 happened and it all went to shit.

Granted in hind sight the Big Dawg was not the kind of President I wanted, NAFTA... f**king dammit. Still he was better than any Bush, or Regan or McCain on any day of his 8 years than they were (and are) in their entire life times.

[izquierdista]

17. 1968

That was the year the country made a horrible right turn and elected Tricky Dick. Without him, Rumsfeld and Cheney would never have gotten above county Republican operative and the senior Bush would just be the son of a traitor who got elected senator. Tricky was the one who decided that the HMO model of managing health care was better for the "free market" (meaning the top 1%) than having a functioning government health program. Tricky was the one who started the Imperial Presidency and elevated "executive privilege" to something more than a punch line. He came up with the "Southern strategy" to ensure that racism would survive for generations past the Civil Rights Act and made sure that questioning the Pentagon's budget requests was equivalent to treason.

No, the slide began in 1968 and America has been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years while other countries create a better quality of life for their citizens.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

40. You're right in retrospect

but I was a college freshman at the time, and still rather naive.

It wasn't until I watched Eyes on the Prize II, which covers both the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations, that I realized how different--and better!--this country would be if their ideas of economic justice and international peace had been put into effect.

The Reagan election was the first time I realized just how many idiots there were in the U.S.

[dixiegrrrrl]

41. Ditto

I could not believe that anyone could just look at Nixon's face and not see his creepy shifty eyes.
And that damn Agnew...same thing.

Sheesh.

[NewJeffCT]

35. I was 13 on election day 1980

and my parents were pretty apolitical, but I knew Reagan was a crook on my own.

I think both my parents ended up voting for John Anderson (whom I later met on an airport shuttle bus like 10 years ago- nice guy)but probably would have voted Kennedy if he had beaten Carter out for the Dem nomination.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

49. Lydia, once again you hit the nail on the head

Reagan's presidency lowered this country's aggregate IQ 30 percent.

King Ronnie the Simple was the first politician of the modern era to say there are simple answers and solutions to everything. While this is manifestly bullshit to anyone with a functioning brain, there are a lot of people who don't want to think or are simply unequipped for the task. They want to be told what to think and believe because all of that uncertainty makes the world a scary place. It's a lot easier to believe in Jeebus, everlasting war against brown people, Big Business and Chimp/DicKKK than making the effort to figure out what your best interests actually are, who is serving them and who isn't.

As George Carlin so trenchantly observed: "Look at how dumb the average person is and remember that half of them are even dumber than that."

[Supersedeas]

51. that's my reaction to WJ callers too -- almost like they don't speak the same language

so stupid, it's foreign

[marmar]

3. Thinking is a lost art......

It seems that so many people are only able to read scripts and follow processes these days. Anything that requires actual original thoughts causes system overload.
:nuke:

[apnu]

11. I blame junk-food TV. Trains people for surface thinking only.

Next up, blipverts!

[bdamomma]

31. so many people have been brainwashed by this

filthy administration and the media completely went with the agenda.

[RufusTFirefly]

4. All my friends think the same way, so we must be right

[guitar man]

5. ...

In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Great quote. nt

[guitar man]

27. thanks

It seemed appropriate. I don't think that we,as a nation, are actually as stupid as we are intellectually lazy. I think most of us have the capacity for some measure of critical thinking, we just choose not to engage in it anymore. Too many people have dropped into the "everything's gonna be allright" mentality and thus, we have the last 27 years or so since Trickle Down Ronnie started trickling all over us until today.

I certainly hope we wake up soon...

[slackmaster]

8. The problem is not limited to right-wing propaganda

Left-wing propaganda makes an equally good substitute for original thought.

The funny thing about people who parrot propaganda is that they are usually blissfully aware of what they are doing.

[Warpy]

10. When I tutored at the college level, I discovered

that the human race just isn't very smart, at least not individually. It's only when we bounce ideas off each other that "smart" happens.

The hardest part of that job was convincing them they couldn't just sit there passively and expect knowledge to be poured in, that their participation was required--especially in math.

Either they're bone lazy or they never ran into a teacher that required they participate instead of parrot.

[lynnertic]

12. why do so many people freaking swear for no danged reason?

it's because they can't think of the words to express themselves.

Is it that hard to learn some adverbs instead of grunting obscenities?

[Lex]

18. OMG. That is priceless.

:rofl:

[Philosoraptor]

19. You just HAD to use the 'D' word didn't you? Go buy a thesaurus

[tjwash]

25. I dunno? The same reason people bang on vocabulary and spelling...

...while they themselves are sorely in need of a course in basic punctuation and grammer?

[INDIA]

48. Grammer? lol, just kidding. nt

[tkmorris]

47. You just did it twice in your post subject line

I have no idea why you believe saying "freaking" and "danged" makes you intellectually or morally superior, but it doesn't. In fact, the use of euphemisms in place of so called "swearing" is downright cowardly. Is there some reason you are afraid to use the actual words you are representing?

[lynnertic]

52. it was for effect, darling.

[KharmaTrain]

14. The Need For Certainty

Critical thinking makes one question...and that's always a threat...especially to the vested elite. These people need the masses to be ignorant yet "entitled"...not only keep them in place but make them compliant.

For some, they need certainty...aboslutes in their world and the right wing feeds this with a healthy dose of fear, hatred and arrogance...so that any questioning is seen as weakness and a threat to their status quo. Life is easier when you have "answer" and then its reinforced with all sorts of strawmen and stereotypes...dumbed down so that it becomes visceral. Demonizing then takes hold...as does further intolerance and hatred.

For over two decades, our corporate media and popular culture have profitted from a dumbed down society. It makes it easier to sell shoes and ideology...and the less educated the consumer is the easier it is to shovel the manure and they'll buy it.

There's a blissful ignorance that some in this country have long enjoyed...a world of certainties...all questions are answered in absolutes. Change, thinking and tolerance are an enemy. They don't know why, but it just is. What a sad reflection of a nation that once was seen as enlightened.

Cheers...

[supernova]

15. The ultimate luxury of

our country is the luxury to be stupid.

We're kinda victims of our own sucess in that our system works so well most of the time that a good portion of people just don't feel obligated to pay attention to it. Our government and what it takes to make it work is a nonetity to them. They just don't see (either the good or the bad) it so it isn't relevant.

As a result we get apathetic uncaring "citizens" in name only.

[oldskool]

20. Because

lemmings have their talking points too. Everyone is thinking
globally (NWO) and not about the problems in the USA. If
asking questions about our government employees is bad then
lemmings deserve the government the get. When we sacrifice our
essential liberties for temporary security,WE LOSE BOTH.(Ben
Franklin)

[hfojvt]

21. "The essence of education, I suggested, is the transmission of values"

"but values do not help us pick our way through life unless they have become our own, a part, so to say, of our mental make-up. This means that they are more than mere formulae or dogmatic assertions: that we think and feel with them, that they are the very instruments through which we look at, interpret, and experience the world. When we think, we do not just think: we think with ideas. Our mind is not a blank, a tabula rasa. When we begin to think we can do so only because our mind is filled with all sorts of ideas with which to think...

I say, therefore, that we think with or through ideas and that what we call thinking is generally the application of pre-existing ideas to a given situation or set of facts. When we think about, say, the political situation we apply to the situation our political ideas, more or less systematically, and attempt to make that situation 'intelligible' to ourselves by means of these ideas." E.F. Schumacher 'Small is beautiful' p. 82 & 84

[tomreedtoon]

28. Why are we stupid? Thank a TEACHER.

They are more interested in dominating and humiliating kids than imparting knowledge or teaching critical thinking skills. I met a lot of teachers during the decade when I dated one, and I wouldn't trust them to wash my clothes, let alone teach children.

[LanternWaste]

32. I met a lot of teachers when I subbed as one...

I too met a lot of teachers when I subbed as one (as much as anecdotal evidence is even worth), and for the most part, the "smart" students were the one who were engaged in the classroom, and the average to below students were the ones who either didn't give a damn about education, or simply thought they were much more smarter than what the school had to offer them.

The tools are there for the students to learn, regardless of the quality (or lack of quality) of a particular teacher or two.

[hfojvt]

34. I generally like teachers

better than many of their thuggish students. They are probably more interested in teaching than many of their students are in learning. But generalizations are never completely true.

[Evoman]

54. Lol...frankly, I find that the people who complain about teachers the most tend to have dumb kids.

Coincidence? I dunno.

[TahitiNut]

22. 'Opinions' have become a reason to NOT think rather than the product of thought.

It's not all that new and it's not limited to the right. I could offer some examples of "mantras" used by folks on the (alleged) left that merely form places to hide. (But I won't.)

The implacable bigotry of some is seemingly impenetrable. I've been on the planet long enough to have known too many folks possessed of racist perspectives ... and they're really not interested in listening or thinking. That's why I've 'sported' the signature lines I have on DU for years. Acton had it right.

[tjwash]

23. Come on man...this is america fer christ's sake.

Being a brain-dead, clueless, non-thinking automaton, is part of the beauty of living inside an imperial war state that faces no risk of foreign invasion or occupation. Everyone here is free to be as oblivious and clueless as their mind will allow. Hell...this is not only encouraged, it's practically MANDATORY for citizenship here.

[rucky]

24. How else can you get on the teevee? n/t

[sourmilk]

26. Good use of logic.

"Why are so many people so fucking stupid?"

"Is it really that hard to THINK instead of parroting right wing propaganda?"

You answered your first question with this second, rhetorical one.

[Fumesucker]

29. Yes..

"Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion – in the long run, these are the only people who count." -Heinlein

[JHB]

30. Lack of "erotic education"...

Sex ed being the biology, erotic ed would be technique.


No erotic ed, so lots of fucking stupid(ly).

:evilgrin:

[hunter]

33. Lead, mercury, pesticides, and a multitude of other environmental toxins...

Add to that poisonous environmental brew heavy drinking by moms while pregnant, a failed public health care system, bad schools, and a Puritanical/Fundamentalist blame-the-victim-fear-and-hate cultural pathology and inevitably we end up with a lot of kids who simply don't have the opportunity to grow up to be decent and thoughtful human beings.

It's not even a matter of intelligence. Someone who doesn't have the intellectual capacity to add single digit numbers can be brilliant, loving, and courageous compared to someone like George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, or not-that-kind-of "doctor" Laura Schlessinger who spew a constant stream of hatred, fear, bigotry, and deception to cover up their own cowardice, failures, and profound lack of empathy.

[LibDemAlways]

36. The other day a repuke acquaintance told me that the

reason Bush was "re-elected" back in 2004 was that "people don't appreciate being told they are stupid and that their President is stupid which is what the Democrats were doing."

Not quite willing to believe my ears, I asked her to clarify why she voted for Bush and why she believed 59 million others did, too. Her response had nothing to do with Bush's policies. It boiled down to, "I voted that way to spite the Democrats for being elitist." Unbelievable.

[MrScorpio]

37. IOW: "I'm shooting myself in the foot because smartasses tell me that it's a bad idea"

I call folks like that "Contrary People"

[LibDemAlways]

38. Yep, they're standing on the tracks with a train fast approaching

but they won't budge because you looked at them cross-eyed when you told them to get out of the way. Only problem is when you pull that kind of stunt politically you risk mass chaos and death because everybody else is on the damn track too.

[skooooo]

44. And what does she think of her choice now?? nt

[LibDemAlways]

55. She's voting for McCain. Apparently she's enjoying the

demise of the USA and wants it to continue. She also added that even though she thinks it's a good thing to have a different party in charge every once in a while, the Dems don't deserve it because "they keep putting up northern liberals who are out of touch with the common person." I just shook my head. Some people are beyond hope.

[MrScorpio]

39. This is good

http://prettyfedup.com/pfu/philosophical/whyarepeoplesostupid.htm

[dysfunctional press]

42. apparently, just about half the people in the country are BELOW average...

and that's true of ANY category you choose to judge them on.

wow.

just, WOW.

[fla nocount]

45. Statistically, using a factor of 50 percent, your statement is impossible.

Just sayin'

[Disturbed]

46. Being ignorant is not the same as being below average in IQ.

The majority of Americans are not stupid. It is frustrating that millions are ignorant on major issues that face America. Most people are not very interested in Politics. They are more knowledgeable about Entertainment & Sports than Political matters. Many are purposefully ignorant about many topics. They do not chose to study any topics that aren't interesting to them. Millions are apathetic &/or cynical about Politics & Politicians, feeling that nothing really changes & that they can do nothing to bring about changes that they desire. So they don't delve into issues & do nothing. It is simplistic to cast a large portion of Americans as being stupid because they support shallow RWing concepts. There are many factors that contribute to their ignorant opinions. The Educational System & the US Corp Media are contributing factors.

[dysfunctional press]

50. the op used the words "fucking stupid", not me...

maybe you responded to the wrong post? :shrug:

[kath]

43. Why? because the powers-that-be want it that way.

How?:
1)Schools
2)TeeVee
3)Religion

I used to call those the Trifecta. Now I've got another:
Sports (yeah, overlaps with teevee somewhat. But REALLY keeps people narcotized.)

[ellie]

53. Yes, I always

hear the "I'm too busy to keep up," but then the idiot quotes Rush Limbaugh.