I was right the smart guys were wrong

[kallend 1,623]

15 minutes ago, billvon said:

Well, looking far enough into the future, we're all dead anyway.  But while we're here, I figure it's worth it to try to do some good - even if the only people who might get benefit out of it are my grandkids.

 

"In the long run we are all dead,"; John Maynard Keynes, 1923 

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

3 hours ago, billvon said:

I hear it's coming Real Soon Now.

These threads are a fascinating study in the dumbing down of America.  We used to heed the words of the wise and the learned; now we make fun of the "smart guys" and instead seek out the advice of Joe the Plumber, the My Pillow Guy and the demon-sperm doctor.  We elect failed reality TV show hosts as president.  We give equal weight to both sides, even if one side believes the Earth is flat and the government is being run by lizard people.  We consume our news in quick sound bites rather than read it - and we get our information from videos and not from reading.  We admire those who rely on "gut feel" rather than those who agonize over decisions, seeking input from all sides.  

The days of Lincoln are long gone.  Lincoln created a cabinet of his fiercest political rivals, and then negotiated his agenda with them.  They fought constantly, but when policy emerged it was supported by most of the factions they represented because they all had a say in it.  That would not happen on either side today.

This quote from Carl Sagan 26 years ago is pretty prescient:

I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

Those who celebrate that ignorance, and pride themselves on not being one of "the smart guys" would do well to heed the words of Thomas Jefferson:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Hi Bill,

As long as we have idiots like this one running to govern our nation, we are in trouble:  The time for bipartisanship is over. There is no compromising. The best way to deal with Democrats and all these establishment RINOs (Republican in name only) that we have is to beat them

Trump Ally * Mike Collins Says Time for Civility Is Over Ahead of J6 Rally Speech (msn.com)

Oh, for the days of people like Robert Byrd, John Boehner, and a vast number of their predecessors.  Those people knew what politics was really all about.

Jerry Baumchen

* Actually, this ( Trump Ally ) says all you will need to know about this dufus.