Pubdate: Tue, 4 Aug 2009
Source: Daily Sound (Santa Barbara, CA)
Copyright: 2009 Daily Sound
Contact: http://www.thedailysound.com/contact/Letters-to-the-editor
Website: http://www.thedailysound.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4995
Author: Randy Alcorn

REACHING RECORD LEVELS RIDICULOUSNESS

As a child I believed in the infallibility of adult authority. With
age I began to observe, with some discomfort, that adult authority
could be arbitrary, contradictory, and often wrong. The illusion of a
well ordered society presided over by intelligence, justice, and logic
was completely shattered by the time I entered high school. By the
time I graduated from college it was obvious that the adult world I
was joining included a large minority of idiots--many of whom were in
positions of authority.

Now, after a lifetime of observing the world, I realize that idiots
actually comprise the majority of the adult population. What else can
explain the epidemic ridiculousness that plagues society?

Anyone who thinks I have overstated the pervasiveness of intellectual
anemia needs only consider the display of moronic behavior that has
transpired in Sacramento as state government attempted to balance a
budget. Of course, this is just another repeat performance of
intellectual ineptitude by California government. If intelligent
adults were the majority of the electorate, how could there continue
to be this perennial idiocy in government? Who elects these idiots?
The answer: other idiots.

If the Great Recession has done nothing else it has brought into
sharper focus the painful consequences of idiots being in control of
government. These consequences affect us all, especially the most
vulnerable of society.

Recently, a group of pre-school children along with their teachers and
some parents planned an outing to Santa Barbara's Oak Park wading
pools. This was part of a program to reward the kids for their
academic efforts as well as afford them a safe opportunity to develop
the concept of swimming. Upon arriving at the park, the group was
stunned and dismayed to discover that the wading pools were closed. A
blaring sign posted on the gate blamed the closure on city budget cuts.

Meanwhile, the city's chief financial officer, a competent, dedicated
fellow who looks to be well under what most of us would consider
retirement age, announced that he would be joining the growing legion
of public servants who retire at a relatively young age with lifetime
six figure pensions and medical insurance.

How ridiculous is it to curtail services to children, services that
help protect them, and help develop them into productive adults, while
we spend an increasingly huge segment of public funds on lavish
retirement packages for public servants?

Governments at all levels are struggling financially because they
continue to reach record levels of ridiculous spending--mostly on
themselves and on their supporting clients. Idiots, however, will
believe government struggles because taxes are not high enough. Taxes
will never be high enough when spending is uncontrolled.

The local police have uncovered and destroyed yet another huge
clandestine marijuana farm. What is this, the fifth or sixth such
major, marijuana farm found locally in just the past year? How much
tax money is being expended on finding and destroying endless
marijuana plants, and on prosecuting and incarcerating people who use
or sell drugs?

The War on Drugs continues to reach new records of ridiculousness.
Because the law mandates disproportionately high prison sentences for
drug users and dealers, our overcrowded prisons must early release
robbers and rapists so that marijuana smokers can serve their full
sentences.

Our law enforcement system is so obsessed with pursuing this perpetual
game of cops and drugies that cops are falling into their own traps.
Recently, in North Carolina one undercover police officer arrested
another undercover officer in a sting operation during which one
officer sold drugs to the other. Is there such a shortage of real
crime with real victims that our legal system has to elicit crime, or
create crime by making victimless free choice illegal? Ridiculous.

Certainly the explanation of this record ridiculousness includes the
surrender of critical thinking to conventional "wisdom", political
ideology, and theology. Once a mind adopts a doctrine or accepts the
common thinking it no longer has to exercise reason, evaluate facts,
or consider opposing arguments. It simply parrots the party line. It's
like taking a diet pill instead of going to the gym. No need to
exercise the brain when you can just take a smart pill off the shelf
of the ideology pharmacy.

And, isn't it comfortably reassuring when your formulaic thinking is
shared by millions of other parrot-people reciting the same catechism?
This compliant numb-skullery has never been more evident than in the
debate over national heath insurance in which flocks of parrot-people
are screeching out the party line about the evils of "socialized medicine".

Like there are no evils with the current system. Ridiculous.

Polly want private health insurance." Well, Polly better hope she
never loses her job, her money, or gets sick. The other parrots are
not likely to pay her medical expenses. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake