Ignorant or Stupid?

The good news about our presidential situation is that rest of the country knows how we got Jessie Ventura as Governor.  The bad news is that we’ve forgotten the difference between ignorance and stupidity.  We are all ignorant about some things and the more complicated our society becomes the more acceptable it is to be ignorant.  In my youth most males could tune up a car and change a tube on a radio and you weren’t considered very smart if you couldn’t.  We are now blissfully ignorant of how either cars or electronics work, and carry no shame for our ignorance.  Ignorance can be defined as the lack of knowledge about a subject.  Stupidity, on the other hand, is the inability to realize that you are ignorant about something.  All stupid people are ignorant, but not all ignorant people are stupid. (logic is foreign to the stupid).  Even though the vast majority of illegal aliens have entered the country legally and overstayed their visa, and even though we have a net outflow of illegal’s currently, the stupid think a wall will somehow solve the immigration problem.  Both China and East Germany have had experiences with walls that didn’t work well, and Israel is currently finding out that walls can’t solve problems.  Because our media and celebrities say a wall will do our country good, people aren’t willing to overcome their ignorance and we continue with our stupid ways. 

John Stuart Mills said that “Not all conservatives are stupid, but all stupid people are conservatives.”  We are now suffering the results of the smart conservatives leaning on the stupid ones to carry them through.  We should have learned that electing a President as a change agent isn’t going to work.  It hasn’t worked well the last 8 years and it certainly isn’t going to work in the next four.  The divide and conquer tactics of our political parties has poisoned our country into a mass of people that automatically reject or accept all ideas as either unpatriotic or a magic solution that will fix everything. Many of us have come to believe that because many politicians are liars, the best politician should be the best liar.

The majority of the current campaign issues may be highly emotional, but affect relatively few people.  Of all the issues of concern to us only two will affect our grandchildren: Global Warming and Campaign Finance Reform.     

Should we really want change in this country, we have to get Congress to represent those in their districts, rather than myriad special interest groups.  As long as campaign money can come from sources other than voters in the campaign, we will have the elites on the campaign finance gravy train keeping everything just as it is.  If this country isn’t great anymore it is because of the hateful ways the elites are keeping in power.  We must change the way we believe and act towards those that disagree with us if we are to unite and prosper.