My best friend was the lone voice of sanity in her college class yesterday

[StellaBlue]

My best friend - age 27 - is going back to school to get a second degree because, like most of the people we know, she can't make more than $12 an hour with her original BA.

So she's taking remedial science classes and a few other "basics" at the local community college.

Yesterday in her government class, the instructor opened a discussion about recent political/legislative events. She is the only "mature" (haha) student in the class. The others are all fresh out of high school, or perhaps 20. They have diplomas, but there are no real criteria for admission - these are average kids. I say kids. They can vote. :scared:

The instructor told the class about the torture bill, suspension of habeas corpus, etc., as they had just been studying the Constitution and basics of US government in class (makes me wonder how professors will teach it NOW - since it's all really just academic - just windowdressing). Apparently, my friend was the only person in the room of about 30 who thought there was anything wrong with the bill. Her classmates said things like, "Don't you want to catch the terrorists?!" (echoing my father's statements to me the other night, which I posted in a previous thread) and "They attacked us on 9/11 - dudes DESERVE to be tortured, yo."

This is what we are dealing with. These are people with high school diplomas, who are seeking degrees. They are of voting age.

I've said this in a couple of replies elsewhere today, but I really think that the majority of people - in general, but especially in America, for a variety of reasons, chiefly the dumbed-down school system and the lowest-common-denominator M$M - are idiots.

They are anti-intellectual, irrational, superstitious, violence-prone, chest-puffing, flag-waving, Bible-beating... idiots.

And there is nothing we can do about it.

The majority of Americans may now think Iraq was a mistake. The majority may disapprove of Bush. But they certainly didn't come to that conclusion the same way we did, by studying the issues, reading books, listening to educated and well-informed experts. They changed their minds because the media told them to. And they don't care about condoning torture or overturning the Constitution, because the media hasn't told them to. That's as far as their thought processes run, as far as their interest goes. Supersize it. Turn the channel. Girls gone wild. U-S-A! U-S-A!

See the movie Idiocracy if you are fortunate enough to have it playing in your city. If not, get it on DVD as soon as it comes out.

Right now, the European countries have a superior culture to our own. They are more thoughtful, more tolerant, more rational. But this will change. They are so tolerant that they are letting Islamic radicals who cannot coexist with democracy shout down their own values, and it will get worse over the next few decades. Then maybe another region of the world will be in the lead, will be the beacon of hope for human progress. I don't know. All I know is the mechanisms of our society have all conspired, largely purposefully as I see it (the Thugs want a dumbed-down populace), to make America a nation of backward-thinkers. And unless you understand and embracde the logic of rationality, free inquiry, and objective human values (e.g. torture is wrong, Leviticus is barbaric), you will never be won over.

We cannot bring most of these people to our side.

They are like medieval pilgrims (or modern ones), flocking to a shrine to see the charred foot of some saint, thinking it will heal them. They are like the Romans in the amphitheater, cheering on the lion as it diembowels the convict. They are like the militant Islamists, yelling "Death the America!" in the streets.

Yes, I have lost faith in them.

We still have to fight back, to keep speaking, to keep protesting. But realize that we are the minority, just like, at one time, the Sons of Liberty, or the abolitionists, or the suffragists, or the labor activitsts, or the civil rights marchers. The masses of stupid people (and I have given up on hoping they are only idiotic, uninformed - no, they are more than wilfully ignorant, they are stupid - they must be) were only won over to these causes when a critical mass was reached among the leaders and the media. They only got on the bandwagon when it was unstoppable, and then they thought they'd decided to, when really they were told to - by their preachers, by the journalists, by their president. And you can still find plenty of people today, here in America, who have not signed on to any of the human progress movements listed above!

Yet it's those of us who are informed and who are willing to fight for change who can slowly move everyone forward. So we have to keep on.

I know this post isn't totally coherent. I'm just thinking out loud. I have not re-read or edited, nor will I.

My main point is - people are stupid and luxuriate in their stupidity. And there is nothing we can do about it. When we change some things, they will come along for the ride.