For the record, I have always been an optimist, but it’s getting harder by the day to remain one. Luckily, at least for me, I’ve reached an age where the off-signs to life’s interstate highways have begun to appear.

 

I’ve not experienced anything that makes the “end” appear imminent, mind you. But, it’s something to look forward to in light of what seems to be, at least to me, the massive social and intellectual decline of America.

 

Please note; I’m not talking about ignorance. Stupidity is NOT the same as ignorance. We overcome the latter by combining intellectual curiosity with a desire to FIND OUT and IMPROVE THINGS, even if it means abandoning what we already “KNOW.”

 

We’re human; we make mistakes. It’s all part of our nature. We do stupid things. We’ve ALWAYS done stupid things. And, we’ll continue doing them.

 

Yes, ignorance is the rule; genius is the exception. But, smart people acknowledge their ignorance. And, what makes them smart is the fact that they’re not so ensconced in preconceived notions that they’re unwilling to take a “second” look.

 

Stupidity, conversely, is the absence of intellectual curiosity. It’s a cult-like sect, comfortably and dogmatically housed in a cathedral called Status-quo.

 

All of its members are zealots, passionate disciples of style, and totally devoted servants of conventional wisdom, no matter how ridiculous it is, or who said it, so long as it supports their absurd notions.

 

The problem is that stupid people have no idea that they don’t “know.” Not even our best and brightest can teach them otherwise because  they already think they “know.”

 

And, there is nothing generational about it, either. Stupid was still stupid even back in our grandparents’ day. The only things that have changed are the topics and the speed at which we hear about them.

 

Writing and observing are integral parts of good research. So, I do a lot of watching… especially people. And, while the best part of it is the fact that I love doing it, another interesting part is that many people offer to PAY me to do it!

 

My great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents all believed some flat out crazy stuff. For example, cancer was God’s revenge for the sins of “man.” Um, sorry ladies, MEN didn't even allow you to vote back then!

 

Today, of course, moral absolutists, particularly those here in the United States, generally agree that AIDS is now God’s revenge.

 

Then, just as now, people did NOT permit facts to interfere with popularly held preconceived notions. In fact, just like now, some people simply shunned plain old independently verifiable facts, especially whenever they countermanded their own… you know, “true facts.”

 

I’m not going into a litany of my family’s crazy “facts.” It would take too much space and, besides, you wouldn’t believe most of it. Hell, I lived it and I don’t believe ANY of it.

 

But, there is a modern day theory circulating today that would have fit in nicely with my grandparents’ conspiracy-driven beliefs. In fact, my late father—I loved him deeply in spite of it—would have believed it with every fiber of his being.

 

The current day “Birthers” movement is stupidity personified. These are the people, Left and Right, but mostly Right, who do NOT believe that Barack Obama is a U. S. citizen.

 

Both federal and Hawaiian state officials have verified the FACT of Obama’s citizenship more times than I wish to count. Not only did Hawaiian officials post a certified image of it, they included a verified birth announcement.

 

I don’t care in which political party you claim membership, if you choose to believe that Barack Obama is NOT a U. S. Citizen, you are pure, bat-poop crazy, even if your name is Lou Dobbs.

 

It’s OK to disagree with President Obama. It’s even OK to dislike him. But, there is no need to be STUPID about it. So, please stop listening to the voices in your heads that keep telling you it’s all a conspiracy.

 

A majority of us elected him; he’s OUR president no matter how fervently YOU insist on holding onto the hope that the “real” president will step from the shadows, one that is, should we say, more melanin-deprived and with a more American-sounding name.

 

Stupid notions back then were just as stupid as they are now. Unfortunately, though, the one factor that has changed is the one that generates the most danger: the speed at which stupidity travels.

 

Mark Twain said; “The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.”

 

And, he said this long before the Internet, word processors, and cell phones. My parents didn’t even HAVE a phone until I was around six-years old. Even THEN we shared a party line with three other families.

 

Their technological experiences and imaginations were no more capable of envisioning the technology we take for granted today, than ours are of imagining the technology a hundred years from now.

 

A phone small enough to fit into our pockets… with no wires out to a telephone pole… capable of calling anywhere in the world… by pushing buttons AND at NO extra charges? Yeah, RIGHT!

 

I am writing this using a laptop computer connected to the Internet with a cell phone, either of which, in its own right, is thousands of times more powerful than the computer we used to launch our first manned trip to the moon.

 

But, when I combine the two, the power increases exponentially. It will take less than 3-seconds for this to upload to my Internet site. In less than 8-minutes beyond that, more people will have read it than could have read it over a period of a month in yesteryear’s terms.

 

I was doing serious professional research for my first employer (Uncle Sam) in 1967. I was nothing more than a young smarty-pants, know-it-all who was still using a washrag to shave.

 

Had I had just three-percent of today’s technology readily available to ME, I could have browbeaten half the bureaucratic nitwits that I had to deal with right into oblivion—if you get my drift.

 

J. Edgar Hoover may have ruled the FBI through fear and blackmail back in those days. But, had I had my current cell phone back then, along with email and Photoshop image “enhancement” capability, I’D have been the FBI Director!

 

Let me put it another way. J. Edgar would have had a lot more time to devote to selecting his dresses and frilly underwear.

 

All kidding aside. FBI and Homeland Security, you people know I’m kidding, right? RIGHT?

 

Intelligent people know that “conventional” wisdom is always temporary; stupid people do NOT. Intelligent people are masters of their technology; stupid people are slaves to theirs.

 

Technology does not differentiate between intelligent users and stupid ones. Remember this the next time you see dimwits wondering aimlessly through myriad shopping malls, with those Borg-like thingies sticking out of their ears, seemingly talking to the voices in their heads.

 

Back in my parents’ days, if they saw such goings on, they would have called for the “men” in the white lab-coats bearing straight jackets! Yes, they may have believed some stupid stuff, but they had a genuine knack for ferreting out the REAL nuts.

 

Mark Twain was correct about spreading lies around the world. I will only add that stupidity travels much faster than intelligence because stupid people always diminish true intelligence into what they’re intellectually anemic minds can understand.

 

Joe Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.