Morons

If we ever expect to have a healthy economy again, we cannot continue to live in a culture and society that is rife with morons. Let me review a few recent events to highlight this problem.
The first, and perhaps most absurd, is that people have recently criticized president Barack Obama for having a beer at an NBA game. “The job of president is 24/7, so he shouldn’t be getting drunk on the job,” one person said. “At a time when so many people are suffering, it is inappropriate for the president to be drinking and enjoying himself at a basketball game,” said another. Really? Really? Are there seriously people criticizing the president for having one beer at a basketball game? I thought the whole appeal of W. was that he was a good ole’ boy that you could sit down and have a beer with? Where was the outrage when W. went on vacation to Kennebunkport or the Ranch? Apparently the message is that we are to hold Democrats, and especially black Democrats, to a higher standard than everyone else. The irony is that the same moralists that are bitching about this probably listen to Rush “druggie” Limbaugh, vote for Republicans who are responsible for shipping American jobs overseas so that shady business owners can run sweatshops and prostitution rings unabated, and, as our next item will suggest, may not actually be the moral Orals they profess to be.
According to an article in the NY Times, titled “Red Light States,” a recent study by Harvard Business Professor Benjamin Edelman found that subscriptions to online pornography sites were, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, “more prevalent in states where surveys indicate conservative positions on religion, gender roles, and sexuality.” http://blow.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/red-light-states/
A couple of the best nuggets from this study:
1. In states where more people agree that “Even today miracles are performed by the power of God” and “I never doubt the existence of God,” there are more subscriptions to this (online pornography) service.
2. Subscriptions are also more prevalent in states where more people agree that “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage” and “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behavior.”
3. Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favored Barack Obama.
HA! HA, I say! If this doesn’t paint Republicans as charlatans, hypocrites, and liars, I don’t know what will. During the last eight years, they’ve lectured us on morality, and yet, are among the most likely to use pornography. Now, they are attempting to lecture us on the economy and about responsible spending, after they got us into this mess with their religious zealotry for a free market and a foolish, purposeless war in Iraq, where they still haven’t found weapons of mass destruction, or the over nine billion dollars in U.S. currency that was sent on pallets to finance W’s adventure. Socially, they have fought tooth and nail against women’s rights, the NAACP, the ACLU, and the rights of gays and lesbians to be legally married, and for the first time in a long time, Republicans had another reason to not vote for the Democratic candidate aside from the (D) at the end of his name.
Look, I’m not saying that people shouldn’t use pornography, or shouldn’t go to church, or shouldn’t be careful with their money—honestly, I don’t really care. Most liberals don’t, because we believe that people should be able to do what they want as long as they aren’t hurting other people by doing it. What pisses me off is being shamed and scolded and nay-sayed to death by these Republican ninnies and the tools that vote for them. Perhaps what they need is a bit of scripture, since God is coming any day now with the four horsemen and Armageddon…In Matthew 7:3, Jesus says,
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in someone else's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from the other person's eye.”
OK, the last recent indication we are living in a nation of morons…the press wrote loudly last week after Obama’s speech, that though it was stirring, “stock prices still fell.” And? I really don’t know what they were expecting…should the market rally just because someone made a good speech? If so, why? After all, Obama’s speech did not make any publicly traded company more efficient, more solvent, or better suited to do business. I feel a little silly saying this, but we have to stop looking at the economy as a magical entity. It seems that as a nation we have no problem telling our kids that money doesn’t grow on trees, but apparently our press, at least, believes it does emerge from the mouths of compelling politicians.
Until we, as a nation, begin living in reality, stop telling other people what to do, stop judging others, and start making rational and reasonable decisions based on facts, science, and research, we are in deep shit. That means addressing health care, education, our system of justice, immigration, energy, and transportation, rather than gossiping about celebrities, reality shows, or what the president chooses as a beverage at a basketball game. Cheers Barack!