How Dumb Can Man Be?

Before this crap started, generally everyone agreed health care had to be reformed. Even a lot of conservatives were congratulating Michael Moore on his movie ‘Sicko’ two years ago to my utter shock. Now it’s riot city. It’s not that I’m disappointed the crazies outnumber the reform protestors; it’s that they seem to even outnumber the war protests. The Baby Boom generation has failed us. It’s like for a brief glimpse in the 60s, the vast majority of the country’s youth understood that we needed to stop feeding the war machine and ferment better racial and gender equality throughout the nation, but now they’ve all retreated to their suburbs, cradling their guns in fear of the African Anti-Christ and his army of Socialist Gun-stealers.

I heard lately that although our material wealth has increased three times over since the 50s, we have steadily become less happy every decade, despite the explosion in mood-altering and sexual enhancement pharmaceuticals. Yet people were happier in the 60s with nothing but ragweed. A large part of it is because people know only half as many friends as they did back then, but I guess a lot of it can be attributed to the American need to outdo your neighbors and buy a bigger house.

I also read a Gallup Poll from 10 years ago that said one in five Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth. I’m having a hard time believing it. I keep thinking that most of them must have misread it or that it was phrased in a way that made them think the question was from their own perspective. Can people really be that stupid? It’s becoming a very transcendental question to me.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/3742/new-poll-gauges-americans-general-knowledge-levels.aspx

Why You Should Vote Republican

I got this email about “Why I am Voting Democrat.” The reasons were not very sound, so I replied with reasons why the author should instead be voting for the Republicans.

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WHY I AM VOTING DEMOCRAT

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

Then you should vote Republican, because they’re the ones that doubled the $5,000,000,000,000 debt after Clinton balanced the budget.

>I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

Then you should vote for Palin since she’s for trying to censor books at the library.

> I’m voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people.

Then you should vote Republican since they’re the ones bitching about Obama going into Pakistan to get Bin Laden.

> I’m voting Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

Then you should vote Republican since they’re the ones who keep finding weather forecasters to talk about the completely unrelated topic of climate science instead of climate scientists.

>I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

Then you should vote Republican, because when the Health and Human Services redefines abortion to mean using any contraception, as they’ve proposed with the support of the religious right, the rate of real abortions is going to skyrocket.

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/07/15/hhs-moves-define-contraception-abortion

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.

Then you should vote Republican since it’s their deregulation and supply side policies that have ensured businesses will not be taking in much profit for the next few years.

> I’m voting Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

Then you should vote Republican since they’re the ones who want to rewrite the Constitution in order to exchange the right to pursue happiness with a conservative definition of marriage.

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe that open borders and government giveaways to foreigners is a great way to grow a nation.

If you believe that, you must either be a Libertarian or a businessman who wants cheap labor, in which case you should vote Republican like they always do.

> I’m voting Democrat because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

Seeing how Biden has already promised that no one’s taking his guns away, you should vote Republican since you seem to have a lot in common with Dick Cheney.

>I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

If you’re that interested in taboo sex and want to see more of it on t.v., you should vote for the Republicans since they not only have more sex scandals, but also pursued a $60 million investigation into Clinton’s sex scandal, or in the case of Newt Gingrich, both at the same time.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october172007/repub_scandals_10_17_07.php

>I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

Then you probably would not have liked voting for Hillary if she had won, since she went along with McCain on the “gas tax holiday” that nearly every economist and even the Bush Administration said would only get pocketed by the oil companies. (Although one noted Libertarian economist, Bryan Caplan, said “we could do a lot worse”, adding that he agreed that it would not seriously reduce prices due to increased demand, but it would help distract the public with “a relatively cheap symbolic gesture that makes truly bad policies less likely”.)

>I’m voting Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my butt it’s unlikely that I’ll ever have another point of view.

Actually, the science journal Nature Neuroscience published a study last year showing that liberal brains are wired to be more adept at processing new information and dealing with and resolving conflicts than conservative brains. One would think that would be self-evident given the very definition of their names, but chalk this one up to science proving something we already knew.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,5982337.story