Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Stupidity or Ignorance? Laugh or Cry?

It’s hard to say which this is or what one's response should be.

Jay Leno has fun exposing the depth of our national deficit, and I'm not talking about the economic one. That's just money.


Makes you wonder: do any of these people actually vote? Heavens to Betsy, I sure hope not.

[post mercifully ends here]

39 comments:

OldSouth said...

Problem is, they do. And many, many of them did for the first time last November.

laine said...

Yep, they voted the same way they vote for American Idol except on American Idol there was some talent on view. Most Obama voters went on looks (color of skin) alone.

Anonymous said...

At least Americans are honest enough to show their own citizens (though selectively editing out anyone who gets the questions right). We have plenty of morons up here in Canada but our state media "Corporation", the CBC, sends camera crews to the US to feed our prejudices about Americans.

Czechmade said...

Being a moron should become a luxury.
Tax them. Give the reporter an uniform and keep asking/fining.

Take the money and sponsor those who learnt something.

"I am not wealthy enough to ignore the border states".

We might compete with the schools for adults per square km.

Build schools, not mosques.

Anonymous said...

Churchill's famous dictum: "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried.

What to do?

In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

The p.c. over educated are more dangerous and culpable than the average man's lack of general knowledge which maybe offset by his moral compass.

Solkhar said...

I think I almost rolled on the floor laughing.... "what does DC stand for ......." response "De Capital"!

But to be honest, one of them summed it up - "I do not read books" and I think that to be honest is it.

The web and television have made the new generations brain dead.

(no respect to us using the Web, hopefully all of us in moderation, I have a life outside of here as well...)

Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
In Hoc Signo Vinces† said...

Solkar,

There are millions of people who can recite the little green book from cover to cover, obviously not a sign of intelligence.

. said...

Actually, all these are the same people that think Obama was born in Kenya.

And also that Obama is a Muslim.

Dymphna said...

nodrog--

How do you know this? No political information questions were asked.

However, I do remember the "man in the street" interviews where Obama voters were told about various planks in his platform (all of them really Republican views) and on each one, they agreed that if BO was for it, so were they. This went all the way down to being against abortion and stem cell research.

Get a grip on your mono-mania, nodrog. Not all God's evils are on the right.

Czechmade said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Czechmade said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Gregory said...

Pretty disgusting. I hope a lot of their ignor-anus school teachers get fired.

mace said...

Dymphna,

Can we assume this is a representative sample and not a set up? I had the impression that Americans were well informed as to their history,apparently not.

I doubt if most younger Australians would perform any better if asked similar questions.

Dymphna said...

mace--

I wish it were a "set-up". Unfortunately, this ignorance is wide-spread. I talk to children who can tell me all about Harriet Tubman but don't know about the Emancipation Proclamation and have never read the Gettysburg Address.

American high school seniors are interviewed every year and they demonstrate absymally little knowledge about this country, much less anywhere else. Did you see that person who thought we shared a border with Australia?

Kids from private schools do better, and home-schooled children do best of all.

IOW, the less government is involved in education, the more informed is our populace.

The B is applying for substitute teaching jobs for the Fall, while he tries to find programming work. I hope he gets to sub for middle school classes; they haven't been made into total idjits yet by that age and there is a glimmering of interest remaining.

mace said...

Dymphna,

Disturbing news indeed.After seeing this video,it's not so insulting when I hear that many Americans confuse Austria with Australia,they probably don't know where Canada is either.(I'm sure Oz shares a cultural border with the US).
I'm not taking a superior position here,we have our own Australian version of the "culture of ignorance", probably caused by similar educational failures.

ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Czechmade said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Czechmade said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Steven Luotto said...

The widespread ignorance was caused by "smart" people, those who would have known all the answers. That's what's really troubling.

At the moment I'm fascinated by the Prof. Gates / Crowley / Obama business. I only mention it on this thread because the Luo Tribesman in Chief, called Crowley and the Cops "stupid." I examined the youtube of his declaration and saw that he said: "I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry."

Given the circumstances,(private citizen sees a possible burglary, a cop instantly dispatched to protect a man's property) how could anyone be angry?

This is worse than not knowing who's buried in Grant's tomb. It's not knowing the difference between good and evil at an elementary level being preached from the nation's highest pulpit.

"First of all anyone would be angry" about a well-meaning mistake?! Anyone (in his right mind and with half a brain) would have been pleased, forgiving and friendly.

Ignorance is a beast, and those kids, considering all the money and resources being lavished should have known the answers, but I'm more worried about moral ignorance (being promulgated from high places no less). That's where the real danger lies.

People with high IQs and lots of education created those dummies.

Conservative Swede said...

DP111,

Churchill also said:
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

And that applies even better here.

However, IoshkaFutz made an even better point.

Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ɱØяñιηg$ʇðя ©™ said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dymphna said...

Solkhar--

Are you familiar with the term "wearing out your welcome"? If not, I introduce you to it now.

You are on too many threads at my blog talking on and on and on about Muslims. It is tiresome beyond my ability to convey to you.

Do you not have your own blog? Can you not spend more time there? I do not want my posts to all end in hijacked threads.

So, as of this moment, you are on noitce. Do not come here and talk about Islam. You can talk about the weather, politics, your love life, or how unfair I am...whatever. BUT NO MORE ISLAM.

Got that? NO MORE MUSLIM MATTERS UNLESS IT IS THE TOPIC OF THE POST. THE TOPIC OF THIS POST WAS NOT ISLAM.

Dymphna said...

And that goes for the rest of y'all that poke at Solkhar. Find another game, please. It is ugly and I won't have it in my comments.

Lotsa heat and no light.

CUT IT OUT.

Dymphna said...

@ IoshkaFutz -

It's good to see you.

As someone who has lived here, you no doubt "get" how fascinating the Prof. Gates / Crowley / Obama business truly is.

I wrote one post on it, here:

The Bigot Bomb Explodes into a Tar Baby.

In that essay I gave my suspicions about Gates' and Obama's behavior. In the next essay, I will range further, discussing the topic of race in this country and how the seismic shift is occuring that may have a strong negative effect on the Democrat Party. They are the ones who have been playing the race card ever since they were dragged,kicking and screaming, into helping to pass the Equal Rights Act.

But Obama played it once too often and now the new card in the deck is him as the Joker. What is strange is that this meme started in California, where Obi Wan carried the state. It is not a product of the Red States, though they are eagerly pasting that image everywhere.

I'm planning another essay on race but I want the subject to stabilize and my thoughts to coalesce a bit. Obama sure changed the conversation on race in the US, but not in the way he foresaw.

What he did was to make many white people very, very angry. Black people, too. Don't know if you saw the You Tube video with Crowley's fellow officers but one of them -- a remarkably poised and attractive black woman -- expressed her solidarity with Crowley and her deep disappointment in the man she'd voted for. Quite moving. And in Crowley's hometown, Natick (policemen and firefighters can't afford to live in Cambridge, where Gates is),the local police are providing security during their off-hours because Crowley's family has been threatened.

Following as it did the Supreme Court's overturn of Sotomayor's racist ruling re the Connecticut firemen, the President's reactively anti-white statements have caused a groundswell of sentiment. It may become a defining moment that he won't be able to shake.

His attorney general, Holder, dismissed white Americans as "cowards" about race. Thanks to his boss, the cowardice is over. We realize that our attempts to be patient and polite with the professional grievance mongers did absolutely no.good.at.all.

The consensus seems to be "damned if we do, damned if we don't" so let's not worry about the "waycist" label anymore. We're going to get pasted with that label no matter what.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...

See Bill Whittle here:

Where Black is White and Racists Don't Get a Pass.

[For any readers not familiar with Bill Whittle, he is accomplished in many fields and wrote some of the early, defining posts about American culture post-9/11 in his blog Eject,Eject Eject...I think it's still on our sidebar]

laine said...

I have to add my props to Dymphna's on Bill Whittle who turns out to be as personable and cogent on video as one would expect from his almost poetic philosophical writing. He also has a puckish sense of humor. His Star Wars bit on Obama as Dr. Spock is brilliant. (Supporting cast Maureen Down-whoops-Freudian slip typo Maureen Dowd and a to die for appearance by Nancy Pelosi in the credits).

Whittle is my idea of a good POTUS, charming but with real substance and an ability to explain things so well that maybe even some of the people on Leno's video might understand. Even if they don't, they may vote for him because he has American Idol good looks.

The Republicans need a Great Communicator, second coming. Whittle would fill the bill.

Look him up. You'll enjoy seeing America at its best.

Steven Luotto said...

Ciao Dymphna,

I'm always here! Or rather you and the Baron are always there for me.

Thanks for the links. Somehow I just can't get it out of my head that what Obama said "First of all anyone would be angry" is far more stupid than anything uttered by Jay Leno's parade of dolts.

The professor was a beneficiary of "good" - a concerned citizen and a cop who said "I'll go first, I'm real close" all to protect the man's house.

Then, the liberals described it as a "teaching moment" when the only element who needed learnin' was el grande professor. 19,000 cops have fallen in the line of duty in the USA. What should've been a very jolly: "Eh? Me a burglar? Ha ha ha! I live here" turned into something vile, ugly, racist, stupid. What should have been a "thank you, can I fix you a coffee?" turned into "Rogue and racist cop! Who's your boss? This won't end here!"... and in the end a heavy carbon footprint for diet beer, edgy comments at press conferences in far away Washington. This is stupidity at the deepest level.

Imagine Jay Leno asking Barack Obama: "A concerted effort is made to protect your house against burglary how do you react? A) Get angry and call everyone a racist; B) say thank you and feel pleased that you live in a community that looks after you.

I bet you most of those Leno-dolts would have answered better than Harvard Professor Gates and Harvard graduate ex-editor of Harvard Law Review Obama.

Solkhar said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Dymphna said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Zenster said...

To quote the immortal George Carlin:

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

Zenster said...

Dymphna, I just finished watching the Bill Whittle video and am obliged to second laine's assessment of his work. Thank you for another splendid viral video.